All Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling & Walking’s co chair Ruth Cadbury MP told the road operator’s head of asset and operational development Freda Rashdi on Monday there is “growing anger” that potential routes for new walking and cycling will be lost if bridge arches over former rail routes are concreted in.

Ruth added it would “cost a fortune to reopen structures” either as an active travel or rail route, and asked if there is to be a rethink.

Freda replied she knew of one example in the press, and that if bridges have been infilled “there would have been structural reasons behind that”. She added: “Our standard clearly says you have to consider all the options for walkers, cyclists and horse riders. I would have to check whether they did that from an assurance point of view. I would hope they did and there was an overarching structural reason.”

Ruth came back to say: “I would ask you to go back on this, because it isn’t one case. It was a blanket decision by Highways England to demolish or infill hundreds of bridges and tunnels and send out a standard application to local authorities, many of which didn’t actually notice it and it went under the radar.

“There is at least one concreted in fully so far; how that bridge arch could ever be opened up again, I don’t know. We have seen figures that show it is a lot cheaper to support a structure if it is weak in some other way.”

She added that the infilling decision “goes against what Highways England said it was doing in terms of cycling and walking.” Freda replied: “I have a great deal of personal sympathy; I will go away and talk to the teams and find out the facts.”

Ruth went on to say the actions taken so far had caused “huge future proofing problems for future walking and cycling routes or historic rail organisations” who may want to reopen historic branch lines in the future.

The webinar also heard that National Highways is looking to identify sites for at least two ‘mobility hubs’ to allow motorists to leave their vehicles and walk or cycle the remainder of their journeys.

Following a question from TP Weekly News if National Highways has plans to install ‘park and cycle’ or ‘park and scoot’ facilities on the edge of urban areas – or would look to encourage more motorists to take the final mile on foot – Freda replied: “We are doing research now to try and identify a couple of locations; even if they are small hubs rather than multi functioning hubs with buses and coaches.”

Mobility hubs are “the next step” for park and ride, she added, and part of the ambition is to encourage the last part of a journey on foot or bicycle.

Ruth Cadbury asked if that would link with cycle and scooter hire. “Yes, it would have to,” Freda replied. “And properly designed routes for walking?,” queried Ruth. “Yes. We don’t have locations yet, but we do have existing park and rides and we might be able to develop them further or work with local authorities if they are close to our network,” Freda said. “We are very keen on this area, but it is early days.”

(Photograph: The HRE Group)