Cyclists should not be banned from Darlington's pedestrian heart, committee recommends

Brian Coates, 74, was left brain damaged in September by a fall in the town centre which may have been caused by a group of cyclists seen nearby, who might have startled or struck him.

At a special meeting of Darlington Council’s place scrutiny committee yesterday (Thursday, February 5), Mr Coates’ wife, Mary, added her voice to the cycle ban debate.

She presented a 750-name petition opposing cycling in the pedestrian heart and made an emotional plea for the committee to back a ban.

She said: “My life has been changed, it will never be the same again, he (Brian) needs 24-hour supervision and nobody seems to want to take any responsibility.

“The boy who did it, I want him to know the consequences of what he has done and for other cyclists to know what could happen.”

Cllr Tony Richmond was among the councillors supportive of Mrs Coates’ opinion that cyclists should be banned from the pedestrian heart.

He said an “overwhelming majority” cycled too fast through the pedestrianised area and caused problems for Darlington’s ageing population.

Cllr Alan Coultas said it was important to make the distinction between the pedestrian heart and the town centre as a whole, pointing out that the pedestrian heart covers a specific area of Skinnergate, Bondgate, Blackwellgate and High Row.

He said the whole debate was easily resolved by simply asking cyclists to walk their bikes through the pedestrian heart until they reconnected with a road or designated cycle path.

“It takes about five minutes to walk the longest part of it, that isn’t any time at all,” he said.

And although a report presented to the committee stated that between January 2009 and October 2014 there was just one incident of a cyclist colliding with a pedestrian, councillors accepted that near misses and unreported incidents were an unknown problem.

However, Cllr Jan Cossins pointed out that pushchairs and mobility scooters could be seen as much of a danger to pedestrians as bicycles.

“Where do we draw the line? We have got to be very careful about how we look at this,” she said.

Summing up the debate, Cllr Dorothy Long said: “Anyone cycling in an anti-social way is likely to cause problems in the town centre even if cycling were not allowed.

“This (a ban) would penalise legitimate use, as a result of the actions of a few.”

The committee recommended continuing to allow cyclists to use the pedestrian heart but made recommendations including increasing police focus on anti-social cyclists, improving signage and making it easier for the public to report incidents.

The cabinet will make its decisions on the issue next month.

Opinion piece

As someone who cycles to work in the town centre on a daily basis, the debate over whether to ban the practice from the pedestrian heart is an issue close to my own.

Now, I’ll make it clear that although I cycle every day, I am most definitely not a banner-waving member of the lycra clad brigade who eschew all other forms of transport because their designer bicycle is king.

My bike is cheap and dirty and I much prefer riding my motorbike, or driving my car, but the simple fact is that cycling to work in Darlington is free and very, very easy.

And that’s in no small part thanks to its excellent cycle network, of which the pedestrian heart is a part.

In several years of cycling through the town I have never hit a pedestrian, nor come close.

In the pedestrian heart I ride barely above walking speed and there are usually acres of space around me, because let’s be honest, Darlington is rarely thronging with thousand-deep crowds.

If cycling were banned from the pedestrian heart then I would get off and push my bike, no problem, no argument.

But not for one second do I believe that the certain breed of hoodlum cyclist that delights in terrorising pedestrians would do the same.

Ban bad behaviour by all means, but let’s not penalise the innocent and peg back Darlington’s progress in becoming such a wonderfully cycle-friendly borough.