The consultation deadline will be extended because amended designs and updated reports are still being filed, as of last week.
@sheddy - it looks to me like the comments form is still open.
I'm not sure I get what your objection is? I'm sat here in my 4m x 4m living room thinking that a 6m wide space is practically a motorway in bicycle terms. Are there any projected usage figures because unless this is going to be very heavily used I don't think your point about passing other users on the corner is valid. It isn't a racetrack and heaven forbid that users may have to demonstrate some cooperation and give way to each other on a bend on an access ramp to a bridge.
EDIT: I admit I may be missing the point entirely and wait to be educated.
The basic objection is that it is too narrow with too sharp corners for some government-blessed cycles to make the bend — not even "give way to each other" but at all. The current ramp is straight and slightly steeper and narrower than allowed these days, but it's not awful because no-one has to make a U-turn and two Ls during the climb. Now the borough council wants to bulldoze a road through the bridge legs, so have proposed this little detour of a replacement ramp.
Maybe "a 6m wide space is practically a motorway in bicycle terms" to you, but this is 3m wide with a hairpin. The 6.15m shown is the outer size of the hairpin: two ramps and the fence between them. The recommendation in LTN 1/20 (chapter 10 IIRC) for this situation is 5.5m ramp width. Other parts of the nearby cycle route network are up to 9m wide. A 3m hairpin will be a choke point.
"Very heavily used"? Yes, it's on the Primary Cycle Route Network in the Local Cycling and Walking Implementation Plan (LCWIP) and it's a bridge that connects the four large residential areas to the north to three industrial estates and four retail parks to the south, although there is a two-street gap in the infrastructure where riders have to mix with HGVs and 30mph(yeah, right!) commuters, thanks to idiot safety auditors, which limits usage. Automatic counters were stopped in year ending 2016, before one of the retail parks and one of the industrial estates opened, but rush hour back then saw 300-400 riders detected in each direction. If government is serious about keeping the borough moving, then this is already a key route and it will only become more so, with a new 4000-ish-house residential area planned to the south who probably will be expected to use the hospital and three secondary schools in the residential areas to the north.
No, it's not a racetrack but people do want to get to and from work without enduring an obstacle course. Surely we shouldn't be putting literal obstacles in the way of people cycling like we'd like them to?
And another part of the plan is a mahoosive long arch bridge for cars — which maybe we can agree should not be built, as it is very contrary to several planning policies, but if it is built and they also make the cycleway bridge too difficult to use, it seems pretty likely lots of people will probably switch to motoring.
