The Alliance Devon Street West Cycleway Safety Campaign

During the Council meeting about the Devon St West Cycleway on 18^th December it became apparent to many at the meeting there is a distinct lack of data being recorded about the safety of all users on the Cycleway.

We ran a campaign for a month in June 2025 where 19 injuries and incidents were reported to us – 2 included badly injured cyclists who were hospitalised, with months off work (without any other vehicles involved).

• In the 13 years before this cycleway was built there was only ONE serious injury involving a cyclist along this route.
• From June 25, and our January 26 report, we are now aware of FOUR serious injuries to cyclists in JUST 2 MONTHS of capturing data.

When we ran the June 2025 campaign multiple supporters contacted the NPDC and asked for the incidents they experienced, or witnessed, to be recorded as a health and safety incident. All were advised there was no system to do this.

Murray Chong contacted 7 panel beaters late last year to be told they had repaired 560 vehicles from crashes along this route. 54 of those vehicles were damaged badly enough to be towed by local towies.

Beca managed to find just 3 incidents (none were serious) from 6 months of focus groups in 2025. The people on these focus groups were invited to give feedback about the cycleway, but the general public were not.

In the Council meeting on 18^th December the Council staff suggested setting up more focus groups to capture data.

What the NP Community needs is real data being captured by real people who use this stretch of road.

We are so concerned that the lack of safety with this Cycleway is not being recorded, we started a campaign last month asking the community to let us know what they see happening, so we can record the safety data.

We are encouraging everyone to tell us when they see safety issues with anyone using the cycleway.

• Any close calls or damage to any person, cyclist, mobility device, scooter, or car.
• Any trips, falls, crashes, injuries, or ambulance call outs.
• Anything that shows this cycleway is not safe for those using it, whatever form of transport is being used.

Send a message through our Facebook page, or email: ratepayersnp@gmail.com

We are not including any names or contact details in the report, we just need details of any incidents.

• We have attached our first report.

Even at such a quiet time of the year with so many people on holiday and switched off from social media – there have still been multiple incidents reported in this first report – including 2 cyclists requiring an ambulance and one admission to hospital.

• We will report on this every month.

We really want to encourage people to tell us what they see, so we can educate everyone about what is really going on with injuries and near misses along this route.

We need help from the community to capture this data, bring it out in to the open, and to the attention of the NPDC.

We want to present this safety data to the Councillors, so when they next vote on the future of the Cycleway, they have accurate data to be able to make the right decision about the future of this cycleway.