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Birmingham cycle campaigners say consider cyclists' needs in New St redevelopment

Station currently has 30 bike parking spaces for 140,000 passengers who pass through daily

The head of Birmingham bicycle campaign Push Bikes is pressing the local council and Network Rail to take greater consideration of cyclists’ needs as the city’s New Street railway station, the busiest in the UK outside London, currently the subject of a massive redevelopment programme.

Although it handles some 140,000 passengers a day, John Bennet of Push Bikes says that the station has only 30 bike parking spaces, compared to 300 at Bristol Temple Meads.

“Birmingham has always been at the bottom end of the table for cycling the UK but it has grown a lot in the last year,” Mr Bennett explained to the Birmingham Mail.

“The council needs to do more and so does Network Rail,” he added. “They don’t provide nearly enough racks and what is there is in a dark location which is vulnerable to thieves.”
A spokesman for Network Rail told the newspaper that the redeveloped station would have 190 bike parking spaces from 2015, with improvements also made to security.

That still sounds a far cry, however, from the £700,000 Cyclepoint facility opened at Leeds railway station last year, operated by Evans Cycles and developed jointly by Network Rail, Northern Rail and Leeds City Council.

The facility, modeled on the Dutch FietsPoint concept, provides secure, fully staffed parking for more than 300 bicycles, as well as housing a bike shop and workshop.

 

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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