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I would like to respond to the letter from Bea Rogers regarding the proposed cycle route through Alexandra Park, published in the Observer.

When the cycle route was being designed, an exhaustive safety audit was carried out. It is publicly available on the county council website as part of the agenda for the meeting in which Councillor Dowling approved the route. This report also outlines research on two alternative routes, St Helen’s Road and Lower Park Road. Both were ruled out largely due to the number of parking places and trees that would need to be removed to make the route viable.

Reader’s Letter: Hastings park cycle path is the lazy route

In the same meeting it was agreed that the route will need monitoring once installed, and the county council is seeking ways to create a legally binding agreement with Hastings Borough Council on this matter. Note, though, that the safety report refers to an extensive study of shared cycle/pedestrian routes across the country which found no record of collisions on any of the routes. I regularly cycle on the shared route along the seafront promenade and have not seen any problems. When it’s too crowded, mostly in summer, cyclists simply avoid using it or walk their bikes.

The cycle route through Alexandra Park will provide a key section of a safe network of cycle routes in Hastings that will finally allow many people to cycle who find our roads too dangerous for bikes. It will use only one of the many routes available through the park.

A quick scan of Crashmap.co.uk shows just how dangerous our roads are. There have been over 60 accidents on the roads around the park in the last eight years.

We need to reduce car use by 5 – 6% a year to stand any chance of hitting our carbon reduction targets, and routes like this are a key part of that shift.

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Reader’s Letter: Safety around the proposed park’s cycle path in Hastings