No - BW originally spent millions tarting up the towpath to cycletrack standards round Bath. Then they tried to charge the cyclists £10 for a license to use it. The cyclist did a mass protest and BW stuck its head up its bottom and let them ride for free. After that they did a lot of sucking up to Sustrans and selling the idea of paying for better towpaths to council and so towns like Stoke now have mile upon mile of cycle standard towpath - even where, in some places local people said they were happy with the grass ones. The current excuse for the paths is wheelchair access - a local village got one which ends where BW ran out of money. Never seen a wheelchair on it but bikers use it though, as it is just a couple of miles with grass towpath either end these tend to be more other towpath friendly bikers. Having said that BWs method of installation of this path was to first remove all topsoil then lay the path then bring in new soil and spread grass seed. This meant the million or so violets and primroses that grew in this section making a lovely display each year vanished without trace. One eco who came for the plants told me it was bloody boaters who had ruined the towpath just because they wanted their artificial stone paths. He had gleaned this information from his local trust who were told it by... Wed, 5/8/09, Cliff Hutton <[email protected]> wrote:
From: Cliff Hutton <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [canals-list] Re: Cycling on towpaths To: [email protected] Date: Wednesday, 5 August, 2009, 9:37 PM Do towpath cyclists pay for a license for terrorising the rest of us? If not why not? There's some of the money BW apparently needs. CliffH ____________ _________ _________ _________ _________ __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail. yahoo.com [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
