Liverpool City Council ask for feedback on 8km active travel route

A public consultation has launched this week on a major new active travel route in Liverpool. The route would run for approximately 8km from Childwall through Wavertree and into the city centre, providing access for more than 100,000 people.

The ultimate goal is that this route would eventually connect to the new Lime Street corridor and then through to the city’s waterfront.

The proposed new facility is one of six permanent routes the Council is delivering as part of its Active Travel programme and it will also feature new and improved footways, pedestrian crossing facilities and landscaping.

The scheme will include segregated, bi-directional cycle tracks, new road crossing facilities suitable for walking, wheeling and cycling and widened footways and public realm improvements ‘to reduce dominance of motor vehicle traffic’.

The consultation ends in July, which is set to be a big month for Liverpool’s active travel programme, with the completion of year-long scheme to improve 30 access points along the Liverpool Loop Line, which runs 16km through the city from Halewood to Aintree.

A new cycle training facility at Everton Park is also due to be officially opened. Funded as part of the British Cycling ‘places to ride’ programme, the facility provides an artificial road network for children to understand how to navigate different types of junctions.

On top of this, a report to the Council’s Cabinet in July will also seek to accept almost £11m to fund three of the active travel routes that were created during the pandemic – West Derby Road, Vauxhall Road and Sefton Park.

Councillor Dan Barrington, Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change, said: ‘Liverpool’s cycling offer is not yet where it should be – but as these plans show we are moving in the right direction.

‘The Childwall-City corridor has the potential to make cycling an easier option for tens of thousands of people. When you factor in how it will connect to other routes, you start to see the impact this could have – be it in our environment, our air quality and people’s physical and mental wellbeing.

‘Rebalancing the shift away from cars to more active travel is also going to be fundamental for any city in its pursuit in tackling climate change. This is the challenge of our lifetime and the more people engage in this conversation and our consultations the better our offer will become.

‘The work won’t stop here. There’s more to come. And with better facilities too for our children to learn how to ride, like at Everton Park, we’re sowing the seeds for the next generation to be even more cycle-minded and laying the foundation for a real revolution in how Liverpool gets moving.’

Simon O’Brien, Walking and Cycling Commissioner for the Liverpool City Region, said: ‘Cycling is great for air quality and the environment, and brilliant for our physical and mental health and wellbeing. But we shouldn’t just think of getting on our bikes as exercise – it’s also a cheap and easy way to commute to work, travel to school or college and even pop to the local shops.

‘But to encourage more people to leave the car at home for short journeys we need to make cycling a really attractive option by building safe, separated routes where people can ride their bikes with confidence. That’s why routes like the three new ones being planned around Liverpool are so important.’