Cycling ban in Bedford town centre 'keeping people safe' - but is enough being done to warn cyclists of fines?

The cycling ban in Bedford’s town centre is to keep people safe, a meeting heard – but a councillor questioned whether enough was being done to warn cyclists they could be fined.

During last week’s Environment and Sustainable Communities Overview and Scrutiny Committee (September 26) councillor Caroline White (Labour, Kempston Central and East) said: “I’ve been inundated with complaints from residents that have been fined dismounting their bikes in the town centre near Harpur Square.

“We are supposed to be encouraging people to cycle into town. Should we be fining people who are using their bikes to go into town?”

Paul Pace, chief officer (environment) said: “That zone is for pedestrians only.

“We want to encourage people into our town centres and they want a safe place where they can actually not worry about bicycles.

“I’ve witnessed, many times, bicycles flying through the town centre.

“The only reason we bought these fines was we had a number of instances with one or two people getting clipped with bicycles, mostly the elderly, but also huge amounts of near misses.

“We don’t ban cycling all the time, we ban it during a period of time,” he said.

Mr Pace added that there is a traffic regulation order designating the area as a pedestrian zone.

“If we were allowing people to cycle through there and not enforcing it, we would be called to task to say why are we not enforcing the traffic regulation order,” he said.

Councillor White said: “I agree we need to make it a safe zone for pedestrians, but then it’s also our responsibility to be putting better signage.

Mr Pace said: “There is traffic regulation in order signs as well as the PSPO [Public Spaces Protection Order] signs that clearly do say the area is a pedestrian zone.

“There is quite a lot of signage already in place,” he said.

But he offered to walk the site with councillors to see if any improvements were needed.