Grand Arcade Cycle Park

This article was published in 2007, in Newsletter 75.

That Cycle Park still not open

Though the contraflow cycle lane in Corn Exchange Street is now open, at the time of writing the cycle park for the Grand Arcade regrettably is not!

Grand Arcade Planning permission required the cycle park to open at the same time as the car park was re-opened. That happened in the summer. Now John Lewis has opened and there is still nowhere in the area for cyclist customers to park. This is an intolerable situation.

The new John Lewis store opens without any cycle parking
Image as described adjacent

We are told that it really, really will open soon. It is just waiting for some of the racks to be moved because they were installed too close together. Nevertheless, the developers have not shown any enthusiasm for carrying out this work. Even then, until the Grand Arcade is fully open, the cycle park will have limited opening hours: 07:00-19:00.

Apparently the related cycle shop, which would have supervised the cycle park, has not been let. This is probably at the root of the problem. Nevertheless, that the anchor store of the new development could have been allowed to open with no cycle parking whatsoever is a disgrace and infringes the planning consent. This compounds the further disgraceful flouting of the cycle parking standards where no cycle parking is provided as part of the proposed Lion Yard redevelopment or in the Bradwells Court / Christ’s Lane shopping centre reconstruction, where two shops have already just opened and which is also due to be fully open before Christmas.

David Earl