In a completely unsurprising statement, West Sussex County Council has finally officially announced the removal of the pop-up cycle lanes in Crawley.

The Government funded cycleways were aimed at providing a safer environment for people to cycle and – ‘to help reduce pressure on pubic transport’.

But the county council, rather than admit their removal is based on the lack of support and use of them from residents, appears to have justified their removal by claiming it is taking the measures as a result of added funding from the Government to the local public transportation network.

In a statement they said:

“When the Government funding was awarded and the cycleways’ construction started, the country was just emerging from the first national lockdown. However, since then, the Government has continued to provide additional funding for local public transport and traffic has significantly increased, so the pop-up cycle lanes are no longer needed for their original purpose.”

Roger Elkins, Cabinet Member for Highways and Infrastructure, said:

“The schemes fulfilled their main objectives of offering people dedicated space to cycle rather than using public transport, or to leave the car at home and use their bike instead. This was in response to the unique set of circumstances during the first national lockdown, including schools and colleges having been closed for months and vastly-reduced public transport capacity.

“The extraordinary environment that led to their installation no longer exists even though we are about to enter into a new national lockdown: schools and colleges are open, traffic volumes have increased and, although public transport capacity is not back to pre-March levels, it is significantly improved.”

But it is the additional comments made about their usage that reveals something every single person who signed a recent petition was telling them from the start – that hardly anyone was using the cycleways.

Their statement added:

‘The impact of the schemes has been monitored during their operation. Feedback showed the majority of responses were opposed to the cycleways, citing increased congestion as a key issue. Automatic traffic counters also indicated relatively low usage by cyclists in comparison with other traffic.’

But now there are calls for an investigation into what some are calling a ‘debacle’ and if the county council is trying to justify their removal due to ‘government’ intervention and not because they were listening to their own residents then it questions how elected representatives are likely to perform at future elections.