Dear <<First Name>> 

St Botolph's junction has been front of mind for city cycling campaigners over the past four weeks. And guess what? The campaign doesn't particularly like what Essex County Council has pulled out of its Christmas sack.

The issue has taken up the spare time of most of the campaign team so if this newsletter is rather thin, our apologies. There's more on St Bot's further down the page.

Plans for East Hill (part of Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan No 4) are taking shape and will probably be at the top of our agenda next month. 

If you'd like to put your mettle to the pedal and help us, please come along to Bike Drinks (see below), where you can decide if you'd like to dig in.

This month we're also launching a fundraising campaign – all we want is for you to Buy Us a Coffee.

Now please read on ... oh, and a happy Yule and New Year from the cycling campaign committee to you and all your loved ones.

Happy cycling ... and we hope Santa can fit your dream bike in his sack.

The CCC committee

Essex revealed its plan for a revamp of St Botolph's roundabout at the end of November. To say that the campaign is disappointed is an understatement.

In fact senior committee members believe it will do nothing for cycling.

This has all the makings of a scandal, especially considering the £11.8mn cost.

The plan began as a scheme to increase active travel with the present roundabout being converted into a signalised crossroads similar to Whipps Cross and the Elephant and Castle in London.

We were happy with that though obviously we asked for a few tweaks.

Instead Essex came back with a new (old) design – a sausage roundabout.

This is slightly (but not much) better for pedestrians and is hardly any use for cyclists.

Let's remind ourselves of the original thrust of the scheme:

We are still formulating our response to Essex County Council but here are a few points:

• The junction now appears to resemble the high speed and high throughput roundabouts on Harwich and Ipswich Road
• Active travel looks to be an afterthought – where are the connections for cyclists?
• Two stage crossings where pedestrians and cyclists have to share the space will not encourage active travel
• The crossing from St John’s Abbey to Stanwell Street in the original plan has vanished. Money for the St Botolph's scheme is coming from the Section 106 payment for the former garrison site, which was meant to improve accessibility. Why isn’t this happening – why make pedestrians go out of their way?
• There is no safe and convenient route from Magdalen Street and Military Road, Colchester Town railway station and Mersea Road, to cycle to the High Street or to Firstsite and the castle
• All of the off road cycle lanes give way to side roads
• There is excessive use of shared space instead of dedicated/demarcated cycling and walking routes
• The current design doesn't comply from LTN 1/20
• There's a huge amount of wasted space in wide-mouthed junction islands (especially south)
• The angles of the roundabouts encourage fast-in, fast-out by cars, as they would have done in the 1990s
• This is not Greener, Safer or Healthier, or at least not by much.
  
  

Interestingly the scheme drew this response on Twitter/X from @RantyHighwayman, a professional roads engineer who has worked on London active travel schemes:

We are putting together our formal response over the next few days. In the meantime we have asked the main funder – Michael Gove's Department of Levelling Up – to check whether it thinks Essex's design offers value for money (we don't think it does).

We have also written to Active Travel England, the national body of experts that comments on active travel schemes and asked it to exert its influence. The way ATE operates we won't know if we have had any effect unless the scheme is altered, when the changes may be down to ATE's intervention.

The goodly St Botolph was most probably a Suffolk boy but he was well travelled despite that. It seems likely he was born in the early to mid 600s in East Anglia and was educated at an Irish Christian school to the north of Great Yarmouth.

After a spell in Germany he returned to Britain and opened a monastery at Iken near Aldeburgh. He is regarded as the patron saint of boundaries and travel, so it seems appropriate that a roundabout is named after him.

But ... after conducting hours of extensive research for this bio we happened to read the last line of St B's Wikipedia entry, which says that Colchester's Botolph is probably not the real Botolph. Essex historians are convinced he was really Godulf, also a Saxon, and that the name was twisted over the years.

Whatever the truth of it, we hope the saint would have condemned Essex's car-centric plans. If they do go through unchanged, the St Godulf-ul Roundabout has a certain ring to it.

Members of Colchester Cycling Campaign chipped in £236 to mark the life of long-time member Alan Palmer.

About £100 of that sum (maybe a bit more) will go towards signs to mark Alan Palmer Way, the shared-use cycleway between Arclight Way (on the former Cowdray Centre site) through the railway tunnel leading to Petrolea Close. The balance of the money will be given to Cycling UK in Alan's memory. 

Alan died in August 2019. His knowledge and quiet patience helped many people to start using a bike, not just to get from A to B but to see the lovely countryside around Colchester.

It has taken three years to gain agreement about the path naming but we got there thanks to helpful members and officers at Essex and Colchester councils.

Alan's daughter Helen greeted the news: "That's fantastic, just brilliant. My father would be so humbled and I am just so proud that we have this for him. It means such a lot."

We will let you know about the sign unveiling ceremony as soon as we hear the date.

Here's a great way to show your appreciation for the work done by CCC volunteers in trying to get Colchester a first-class cycle network. 

"Buy Me A Coffee" passes small donations straight into the campaign bank account. We don't need membership fees, we don't need megabucks – but a couple of pounds every now and then will help us enormously.

All funds will go to CCC activities and spent however is decided at our monthly Bike Meet. The Buy Me a Coffee site charges us (not you) a small handling fee.

Please chip in and help put real wind in our wheels!

Will Bramhill writes: Colchester City Council is reviewing the Local Plan with a focus on improving our green network and waterways. The cycling campaign will respond if it has time but if you'd like to have a say, you can do so here before January 5, A user guide is available if you need help.

Just as this edition of the newsletter was going to press, we heard that Colchester eCargo Bike Delivery Project has taken delivery of two new cargo bikes with the help of Colchester City Council.

Expect to see the new Urban Arrow machines whizzing up the High Street delivering Christmas goodies for the likes of Red Lion Books very soon -- but if it's snowing you'll appreciate the bikes' cunning camouflage.

If you'd like to hire a cargo bike for a day or longer, visit https://www.spokesafe.com/colchester-ebike-hire or speak to Mike Polom at the council.

This snap is probably from the 1920s and is believed to show a collision between two cars at the junction between Wimple Road, Brook Street and Magdalen Street. It's attracted the attention of men and boys on bikes, with a gaggle of cyclists eyeing the scene on the right. To stand where the photographer took the picture, go here: https://maps.app.goo.gl/UTYJJMkwFPG86C2b7

The next Bike Meet is due to be held on Monday December 18 at 8pm, most likely online. If you are signed up as a member, you will get the joining details by email. 

Will Bramhill, the campaign vice-secretary but acting in a personal capacity, has lodged a complaint with Essex County Council over the closure.

Meanwhile he's been exploring the nearby lanes including the curiously named Docuras Farm Road. Docuras is a Viking name and it is possible that the farm was once owned by the Docwras family, which originated in Cumbria.

On November 7 Essex replied to Will to say that shutting the bridge was a blanket decision and did not take into account specific classes of users, such as pedestrians and cyclists.

Will also asked whether there had been any fresh assessment as to whether the bridge could reopen for pedestrians and cyclists.

Essex said "a review has been commissioned and is currently being prepared" and that any changes to the situation will be published on Essex's website here.

Will is in touch with his inner Jack Russell and is chasing them up.

Have you signed the Colchester Cycling Charter yet? If not, please do. If you work or volunteer, please ask your organisation to sign too. The more people on bikes, the fewer traffic jams will snarl up our city.

Feel free to pass on this newsletter via email and social media by using the link at the very top ... and encourage your friends to join the campaign so they receive their own copy every month.

Chairman: Stuart Johnson
Vice-secretaries: Alan Spence and Will Bramhill
Treasurer: Catherine Johnson
Your committee: Alex Hooper, Chris Stevenson, Jean Quinn, Mike Polom, Nathaniel Catchpole, Paul Avison and Paul Byrne