1. Determining Scope
The LCWIP covers the borough of North Tyneside. North Tyneside is home to 209,000 residents (2020 Mid-Year Population Estimate); many people also travel into the area for work, including at major employment sites such as Cobalt and Quorum business parks, or to visit North Tyneside’s town and district centres, while the borough welcomes many visitors including those arriving via the international ferry service to North Shields.
Within the Our North Tyneside Plan, the Authority committed to developing an action plan of the steps we will take and the national investment we will seek to make North Tyneside carbon net-zero by 2030. The LCWIP will play a valuable role in helping the Authority to achieve this target.
The proportion of North Tyneside residents who cycle to work increased by 20% in the ten years to 2011 (Census data). The Authority has adopted the North Tyneside Cycling Strategy which set a target to achieve an annual increase in cycling trips of 7%. In 2021, cycling growth within the borough has increased by 61% when compared with the baseline set in 2018, 40 percentage points higher than the Authority’s target growth for the year.
Strategic Cycle Routes, shown in the form of a ‘tube map’, were identified in the development of North Tyneside’s Cycling Strategy: using good quality cycling infrastructure constructed within the street setting, the Strategic Cycle Routes will be supported by a grid of local routes suitable for cycling, with the aim that these will be separated by no more than 250m.
The borough’s four town centres are defined in the Local Plan: North Shields, Whitley Bay, Wallsend and Killingworth. The North Shields masterplan and the emerging Wallsend masterplan consider cycling and walking links in these town centres – as such, in terms of walking zones the LCWIP focuses mainly on Whitley Bay and Killingworth, and will be used to inform the masterplan for Whitley Bay and regeneration plans for the North West of the borough as these are developed.
Many journeys in the borough cross the boundary into the neighbouring local authority areas of Newcastle and Northumberland, and cross-boundary working with these authorities will continue as the LCWIP is further developed. The Tyne Pedestrian and Cyclist Tunnels and the Shields Ferry also provide an important link in cycling and walking journeys to destinations south of the Tyne.
In line with this approach, the focus of the LCWIP will be on cycle routes identified within the ‘tube map’ and associated ‘last mile’ connections into town centres. The focus for walking improvements will be Whitley Bay and Killingworth town centres, as set out above.