CORNWALL Council’s planning department has told its own contractors to go back to the drawing board on proposals to build a shared use walking and cycling link route on the northern side of Boundary Lane in Bodmin.

Cormac Solutions Ltd had submitted a pre-application advice enquiry seeking the planning departments views on a proposal for the three-metre pathway.

The response of the council had not been shared publicly but was revealed after a freedom of information request by Iliffe Newspapers Cornwall.

Cormac Solutions Ltd told the planners in a meeting that the proposal for a ‘snake path’ linking Boundary Road to the public open space within the Treveth estate was not deliverable due to costly retaining walls, the below ground presence of gas infrastructure and that it would require the positive agreement of an additional stakeholder in the form of the NHS Renal Dialysis Unit. Further, it would have ‘lost a considerable amount of vegetation’.

In light of this, Cormac proposed an alternative which would continue the pedestrian and cycle path further along Boundary Road in a north westerly direction towards the Wainhomes development, where the path would then double-back along the existing line to the north of the aforementioned Renal Dialysis Unit.

This proposal was not well received by Cornwall Council’s planners, who told Cormac: “It is of note that this repeats a discussion that occurred a couple of years ago. Previously, the snake path whilst circuitous, was offered and accepted as an additional way of forming a direct linkage into the Treveth estate from the St Lawrence urban extension.

“The need for this additional provision was the recognition that due to the change in levels up to the Treveth site, the most direct linkage originally planned was only deliverable as a stepped access.

“To reiterate the position that was originally discussed, and remains the case - the route that continues along Boundary Road and switches back past the Renal Unit, by reason of the lack of directness and circuitous nature, will not be a desirable route to users and accordingly is not a suitable alternative to the provision of the snake route and is not supported as such.

“It will provide some benefits, but it will not address the priority movement patterns. Secondly, your team also identified challenges that may preclude the delivery of a pedestrian cycle route from the priority junction at the hospital entrance along the eastern side of Boundary Road to the south to link with the Coastline Housing development to the south.

“The stated challenges included that such a route would result in a significant loss of hedgebank and tree canopy and that discussions with the NHS would be problematic.

“Although there may be alternatives it is imperative that the scheme provides linkage from the Coastline Housing site across Boundary Road, though this does not necessarily need to be toward the hospital entrance.”

The council suggested a potential solution that might overcome these concerns. They said that the plans submitted by Cormac does not appear to ‘suggest any intervention or improvement to the hospital junction.

They said: “It is considered that one sensible alternative to the snake path, that ensures connectivity for all, and which was suggested both at the Teams meeting and during discussions a couple of years ago, was the upgrading of the priority junction at the entrance into Bodmin Hospital.”

Cornwall Council’s planners said this could take a number of forms but the most practical, in their view was the delivery of a ‘pedestrian friendly priority junction’ – in the form of a non traffic light controlled intersection.

They said that this could be an intersection where the physical layout and design strongly reinforce that people who are walking and cycling have an ‘absolute right of way’ over turning or entering vehicles through the incorporation of changes of materials, raised tables or a Copenhagen style crossing provision.

A Copenhagen style crossing (also known as a continuous footway or blended crossing) is a street design where the sidewalk and cycle lane extend uninterrupted across the mouth of a side road. It reverses standard convention by forcing turning vehicles to drive over the pedestrian and cyclist realm.

The council added: “If done correctly this would potentially obviate the need to undertake extensive / costly works to construct the snake path, or the much longer circuitous alternative that was discounted above.

“It would need to be subject to design work and should as a minimum extend the footway from the Toucan into the Hospital Campus to a point where it meets an onward level footway within the Treveth Site.”

A second option would involve building a link between the Coastline Housing development to the hospital where existing footways within the Bodmin Hospital site would then take over the route.

However, the planners told Cormac that engagement with the NHS so all parties can work collaboratively for the benefit of the public was essential.

The Cornwall Council planning department concluded in their response to Cormac: “There is a significant amount of work to arrive at an acceptable and deliverable scheme.

“At the very least I anticipate the submission of another Pre-app once the scheme has been evolved further. It would appear that the main dialogue that needs to take place is with the hospital to ensure that both Cornwall Council and the NHS use their assets collaboratively and effectively to positively support important wider health outcomes, which in this case relates to securing active movement patterns in the community.

“The technical issues that still need to be resolved include highway safety, ecology and trees, and I would under a separate PPA / Pre-app be happy to provide my advice, however until the options have been refined further following consideration of the above feedback, I cannot offer further input.

Find out about planning applications that affect you by visiting the Public Notice Portal.

“Support for a future planning application at an Officer level is dependent on proposals addressing the matters raised within this pre-application response and the opportunity for the Local Planning Authority to review and provide further feedback.”