I am glad Councillor Dawn Barnett (Letters, November 6) agrees with Bricycles, the largest cycle campaign group in Brighton, that the road scheme proposed by Brighton and Hove City Council for the Old Shoreham Road was inadequate to improve the safety of cyclists.

These plans were never brought to the Cycle Forum for discussion before being put out for public consultation. We canvassed our members before submitting a responsible and well-informed critique as part of the public consultation.

As stated, the proposals included pinch points, narrow lanes and inadequate junction treatments.

It has been seven years since the council agreed to spending Cycling Demonstration Town funds to improve the Old Shoreham Road.

Since then, we have seen endless delays and excuses for the failure to provide cyclists with a safer east-west route across the city, despite spending millions of pounds on other schemes. We are not in the business of accepting something on the basis that it is “better than nothing”.

I would ask Coun Barnett to reconsider Lauren Taylor’s totally reasonable appeal for proper use of public funds for real road safety. The overarching, evidence-based measure to improve the safety of cyclists and that of pedestrians, children, older people and the mobility-impaired is to introduce traffic speed reduction.

I have directly asked Geoffrey Theobald to reduce the speed limit on the Old Shoreham Road. This, together with traffic reduction and a change in the liability law to favour vulnerable road users, would save many lives and shift transport in favour of walking and cycling.

If Coun Barnett would like to discuss with us in detail the pros and cons of those planned facilities, which her colleagues have preferred to ditch rather than improve, on the pretext of our response, she is welcome to get in touch.

Becky Reynolds
Bricycles (www.bricycles.org,) CTC local Right To Ride representative, Brighton and Hove