Dear Friends of Centurion Way Supporters,
- The friends of Centurion are supporting several events this summer. Please make a note of these dates in your diary if you wish to participate. Full details are given below the horizontal line.
- Plans to build a new road that may replace/remove the southern end of Centurion Way will soon be revealed by the West of Chichester housing developers. Several FoCW representatives will be attending the first consultation virtual meeting scheduled for Wednesday 30th June 2021. As we receive more information about these proposals we will post the information and links on the FoCW website http://centurionway.org.uk/. Additional details of the consultation process are also provided below the horizontal line.
- Since New Years Day 2021 we have had a working people counter mounted at the southern end of Centurion Way. Again, Links and details are available below the horizontal line.
Hope you find opportunities to enjoy Centurion Way this summer,
Mark Record (on behalf of the Friends of Centurion Way)
3:00 Pm on Sunday July 4th Picnic on Centurion Way (WeatherPermitting)
Celebrate Centurion Way as being the best walking and cycling leisure route in West Sussex. Bring a picnic and walk or cycle to
this family orientated event. Join us at the Amphitheatre Railwaymen sculptures immediately south of Hunters Race bridge. Novelty and cargo bikes will be available to try out.
A .png format image for flyers is available below and it is also available in PDF format on this link
.
We encourage creation of more facilities like Centurion Way to help get people (especially children) outside, happy and active so they can enjoy improved health and well-being. Investing in walking and cycling infrastructure brings significant economic and health benefits as acknowledged by the Department for Transport here.
Join us for an enjoyable summer family orientated picnic and help us show how much we value this wonderful walking and cycling route.
Map showing location of Picnic
8:30pm on Sat/Sun 28th & 29th August “Motherload” Interactive Bicycle Powered Video Presentation showing the Family Benefits of using Cargobikes to take place at the Amphitheatre (Weather Permitting)
Jonathan Fulford (a Bosham Parish Councillor) helped fund production of the Motherload Cargo Bike film. Jonathan is excited that ChiCycle (with support from the Friends of Centurion Way) will give a video presentation (including showing excerpts of the Motherload Cargo Bike film) at the Centurion Way Amphitheatre. It will take place on the bank holiday weekend dates 28th & 29th August.
The video presentation will begin at approximately 8:30pm when it is dark enough to project video images. If you are a strong cyclist you will be very welcome to help power the interactive video presentation by pedalling a bicycle!
If you own a cargo bike, please bring it with you to this event to help promote cycling as a practical way to move kids (and other
bulky stuff) around.
Hopefully, quarantine restrictions will have been lifted by the end of August but if they are still in place please email motherload@chicycle.co.uk to inform the organisers which of the two dates you would like to attend, to keep track the number of people.
Plans to be revealed for a Housing Development Southern Access Road likely to Replace/Remove the Southern End of Centurion Way
Miller Homes’ and Vistry Groups’ have announced they will soon reveal outline proposals for the second phase of the West of Chichester strategic development. These proposals will include details of “Southern Access Road providing a continuous link between Old Broyle Road to the north and the western edge of West Gate Street in the south”.
Current national government policy on walking and cycling forbids construction of shared cycleways on urban pavements except for…
In rare cases, where it is absolutely unavoidable,
a short stretch of less good provision rather than
jettison an entire route which is otherwise good
will be appropriate. But in most instances it is not
absolutely unavoidable and exceptions will be rare.
Details of this current national policy can be found within the summary principals shared by both the Gear
Change national policy on walking and cycling and DfT guidelines on cycle infrastructure design LTN1/20.
West Sussex County Council published a document in August 2019 titled “WEST SUSSEX CYCLING DESIGN GUIDE A guide for Developers, Planners and Engineers. This policy states:
Where spine road serves a development of greater than 500
dwellings and connects to existing highway or primary distributor
road at both ends, stepped cycle tracks are to be provided
throughout on both sides of the carriageway
The WEST SUSSEX CYCLING DESIGN GUIDE also provides an illustration of acceptable standard stepped cycle tracks suitable for new development spine roads (image clip shown below).
FoCW look forwards to reviewing a good quality solution for the new developments transport needs hoping that it will adequately cater for inclusive walking and cycling. Such a solution must avoid relocating cyclists onto pedestrian pavements, particularly cycle users riding Centurion Way and the National South Coast Cycle Route. Infrastructure relocating cyclists onto urban pavements has been forbidden by current national policies on walking and cycling. As soon as design details are made available to us we will publish our analysis and give links to original documents by posting these to the FoCW website http://centurionway.org.uk
Nick Billington who is acting as the associate director of planning for the development, sent us the following timeline for consultation for Phase 2 of the West of Chichester project:
Presumably, on the 1st July 2021 the virtual public exhibition will be made available through the developers consultation website. https://westofchichester.consultationonline.co.uk/
If you feel you ought to be involved with these Community Liaison Group meetings but have not yet been invited, it might be worth contacting the developers by email to see if you can be included in this process.
Friends of Centurion Way have been Measuring the Popularity of the Path since New Years Day 2021
At approximately 12 O’clock on New Years day of 2021 the Centurion Way people counter first began continuously logging how many people use the Southern end of Centurion Way. It also monitors at what
times people chose to travel on the path.
Philip Maber cheated frosty winter weather wearing toasty neoprene gloves (that he got for Christmas) while he bolted on the mount that now holds the FoCW counter on New Years Day.
On Christmas Day 2020 Sarah Sharp prepared steel plates used to fabricate the counter enclosure with an electric angle grinder.
On Sunday Morning 3rd Jan 2021 Gabby Adams cycled into Chichester from Fishbourne to help us figure how to download data from the equipment
On Sunday afternoon 3rd Jan 2021 Bill Sharp made manual counts of path usage to verify the automagically made is reliable.
On Tuesday the 13th Jan 2021 Julia Smith and Mark Record made additional manual counts of the number of people using the path to further verify the function of the counter.
A typical chart showing Centurion Way people counts made during May 2021 can be seen below.
Blue bars represent Northbound Traffic and Red bars represent Southbound Traffic.
The monthly downloads of path usage throughout 2021 can be viewed on the following link http://centurionway.org.uk/category/path-counter