Quiet Lanes
Prompted by Cheshire Transport Campaign Group’s lobbying, Cheshire County Council included in their first five-year Local Transport Plan (LTP) a commitment to pilot a Quiet Lanes area in the Peckforton Hills area and flagged up other potential areas for Quiet Lanes elsewhere in the county.
In 2003 as a result of Crewe and Nantwich Borough Council withdrawing promised funding for the Peckforton Hills project and the Countryside Agency announcing that there was no sponsorship available from them for any schemes beyond the original ‘Demonstration Projects’ in the south of England, Cheshire County Council decided not to progress the Peckforton Hills scheme during the period of the current LTP.
A Quiet Lane in Macclesfield Forest [Image: Photo: CPRE Cheshire Branch]
However, it is now going ahead with another scheme also proposed by CPRE – the Macclesfield Forest. This small pilot in the Langley and Higher Sutton area has come about due to some funding being available via the South Pennines Integrated Transport Strategy (SPITS). CPRE welcomes the fact that a scheme is finally getting off the ground and will be tracking its management and success.
Following the opening of the Macclesfield Forest Quiet Lanes scheme, CPRE had been very disappointed that the impetus for further projects ground to a halt, although we continued to press for the rolling out of more Quiet Lanes and Greenways projects during the course of the next five-year LTP.
One significant factor behind the lack of progress was that the long-awaited Government Regulations on Quiet Lanes had still not appeared. However, the Regulations were finally published on 8th August, and we hope that this will lead to new momentum behind the Quiet Lanes concept.