Campaigners who fought to keep cars out of an Exeter commuter route are preparing to mount a legal battle.
Members of the city’s highways and traffic orders committee (HATOC) voted this week to move to the next stage of a £500,000 project to re-open Dryden Road.
The route has been closed to cars and lorries since the Covid pandemic in 2020, when it was designated as a safe cycling route in and out of the city centre. The aim was to cut pollution and offer safer travel.
Opponents, however, said traffic, fumes and congestion had just been moved to other roads, and the move had created a rat-run through the grounds of the nearby hospital.
The committee voted in the summer to allow cars and lorries back in, and this week decided by nine votes to four to go ahead with the next stages of the re-opening, which will cost just short of £500,000.
The Exeter Cycling Campaign has been crowdfunding in preparation for a legal battle when the official traffic regulation orders are published in the coming weeks.
It says there will be an increase of 1,500 motor vehicles every day in Dryden Road, and the committee has agreed a plan that proposes no new safety measures and offers no information on congestion at the already-busy Bovemoors Lane roundabout.
It will, campaigners say, make the road unsafe and unwelcoming for less confident or experienced riders such as children trying to get to school.
The campaign’s latest statement says: “In the five years since Dryden Road was filtered, collisions for all road users on Dryden Road, Barrack Road and Bovemoors Lane have been reduced by 50 per cent. What a great success – fewer broken bones, fewer people afraid to cross the road and fewer hold-ups due to collisions.
“Despite all of this, councillors have voted to approve the plan and spend half a million pounds, as a result of local traffic concerns caused by parked cars on Bovemoors Lane that could be solved for a fraction of the cost.”
Green councillors on the HATOC voted against the proposal, and Cllr Jack Eade (Green, Heavitree and Whipton Barton) said: “Only Green councillors stood with residents concerned about road safety. Members of all other parties, including independents, voted for a scheme that could make this part of Exeter more dangerous for pedestrians and cyclists.
“What’s more, this amounts to spending half a million pounds of money earmarked for active travel on making active travel less attractive.
“Numerous concerns over safety have been raised by the public. Green councillors see it as our duty to challenge any measures that could make Dryden Road less safe for those walking, cycling or wheeling.”
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