Cycleway plan goes to public

RESIDENTS of Sonning Common are to be asked their views on plans for a cycle route between the village and Emmer Green.

Sonning Common Cycleway, a parish council working group, is to circulate a questionnaire for members of the public to provide information about their cycling habits and comment on the potential cycleway.

Posters will go up around the village with a QR code which people can scan with their phones to take them to the online survey.

The questionnaire does not require anyone to give identifiable information.

The group has also created a 30-page report of the plan for Oxfordshire County Council, the highways authority.

Jonny Bidgood, a member of the group and parish councillor, thanked the other members at a council meeting for their “tremendous effort”.

He said: “When we were asked to do this document, they said, ‘Oh just give us two or three pages’, but we ended up with a 30-page report. We’re looking forward to promoting it.”

Councillor Leigh Rawlins said: “I thought it was a good piece of work and I think it’s really important because Oxfordshire is beginning to put forward a strategic network of cycleways right across the county and there is money coming from the Government with a specific aim of improving active travel and use of public transport.”

Councillor Vicky Boorman said: “I think it is a really good piece of work to highlight the need for this and to make those connections with other key places.

“They [county council] don’t come looking for these schemes unless they’re presented to them. I think it is really good to pull together all the evidence and the information to get that ball rolling.

“Without that, they wouldn’t really be taking this seriously.”

To access the survey, visit https://bit.ly/3wVZ7i4