Peterborough bike group offers to remove barriers themselves nearly a year after council said they would be lifted

A Peterborough bike group has called for barriers on a city path to be lifted to help cyclists, wheelchair users, and mums with pushchairs.

The Peterborough Cycle Forum said they were told by the city council that the gates on Foxcovert Road should be removed nearly a year ago – but they remain in place.

A spokesperson for the forum said: “The barriers were damaged and the council replaced them like for like, without doing an Equality Impact Assessment.

"We challenged this by FOI and they agreed it was a mistake and they would be removed. This was 10 months ago. Barriers restrict access for lots of legitimate users - those on cargo bikes and adapted bicycles, but also mobility scooters, double buggies and wheelchair users.

"Basically you shouldn’t have barriers anywhere these days unless there is a really well evidenced reason, for example a very steep hill.”

The Forum even offered to remove the barriers themselves tweeting: “We understand that PCC is in terrible financial position, without any funding to do any cycle path maintenance, hence 11 months of delays.

“We have met as a group & to help @PeterboroughCC we are willing to remove the barrier ourselves and patch it. Are we allowed to do this?”

A spokesperson for Peterborough City Council said: “We will be removing these barriers and are sorry for the delay with this but we are working to get this actioned as soon as possible."