Tuesday 5 July 2011

Eastville Park: will you be my friend?

Word trickles down of a new group "Friends of Eastville Park", who are fighting back against the plans to formalise the pump trail with something in tarmac, and the development of cycle routes through the park. Why the cycling city maps say you can cycle there., and if someone or their dog gets hit by someone on a bicycle, whether the council is legally liable.

For visitors from out of town, Eastville park is the park to the east of the M32 flyover.

At least today. A large chunk of the park was given over to that flyover, with nothing but a Glasgow-style concrete picnic bench underneath as a memory of families coming down there for picnics.
We find it amusing that only now are people complaining about bits of the park being turned over to transport rather than greenery, rather than, say, 40 years ago.
More importantly, we worry that if the Friends of Eastville park have their way, they may not stop at the bicycle access. They may start asking for the bit of parkland that is known as the M32 motorway back. This would not be good. We hope, therefore, that the Friends of Eastville park are regular users of the M32 and can see the tangible benefits of it remaining in-situ. Be believe this is likely, given that they clearly don't cycle. And as nobody takes their dog for a walk on the flyover, the liability issue there isn't important.

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