Residual

Enlightenment comes via piece of junk mail.

Very occasionally someone puts the Jesmond Residents Association (JRA) newsletter through my door. I'm technically not living in Jesmond, I think, and I'm no member of the JRA. But I am grateful to the Association for information that relates to the cycle highway being rapidly constructed across 'Battlefield' as quickly as the trees can be felled. Sustainable but not for amenity obviously.

"Last summer [2013] the City Council was awarded 5.7 m[illion GBP] by the Department of Transport (DfT) from the City Cycle Ambition Fund. …" (JRA newsletter Summer 2014. Additions in square brackets byBtB).

Whilst the newsletter doesn't mention 'Battlefield' – and who ever does? – it is obviously part of the same "strategic cycle route" planning discussed in the note.

Some might think it a fair exchange, trees for a safe cycle route. But there was such a route already. Making it so cyclists can be tempted to speed past pedestrians with no protection for either is seemingly inviting trouble. Maybe leaving things as they were would invite caution? It would certainly have saved a lot of trees.