Controversial coned cycle lanes to be replaced

Controversial cycle lanes created by using cones to section off part of a major A-road will be replaced.

A series of makeshift cycle lanes, condemned by one Trafford councillor as "ham-fisted", has been in place along a stretch of the A56 in Stretford, Greater Manchester since 2020.

Nearly 3,000 people signed a petition calling for the lanes to be scrapped in 2021; last year police were called when a thief stole 600 of the much-maligned cones.

The cones will now be removed and replaced by a permanent cycle lane after a £2m scheme was approved by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.

The cones were set up along the A56, in areas such as Stretford, Gorse Hill and Old Trafford, in May 2020 during the first Covid-19 lockdown, as part of plan to encourage people to walk and cycle on shorter journeys.

But Trafford Council has been working on an alternative scheme, after the coned zone proved unpopular locally.

Councillor Nathan Evans, Conservative leader in Trafford Council, said he "totally understood" why someone took hundreds of cones from the designated lanes last year.

At the time, he said he did not condone the behaviour but maintained the cycle lanes had been established in a "ham-fisted way".

"I think there are better ways of doing this," Mr Evans said in 2023, suggesting the council had been "totally deaf to appeals from the residents for normal behaviour".

The council said the new £2m funding scheme would provide a "safe, light-segregated walking, wheeling, and cycling infrastructure" along the 1.8km (1.1 mile) stretch of the A56 Chester Road in Stretford".

Trafford Labour councillor Aidan Williams welcomed the news, and joked that he was "going to resist the urge to individually remove each traffic cone by drop-kicking it”.