We had a person contact us, and the council, in Mid January about an incident on the cycleway. The Council did not report on this incident.

We had a person contact us in Mid January who had phoned the Council to complain about an incident involving a Tim Tam with a member of their family. This incident occurred on 11^th January.

Around a week after contacting the NPDC call centre they had not had any contact back from the Council. They didn’t specifically ask for someone to contact them, but their family member was very upset by the incident and they thought they would at least get a phone call about their complaint. They contacted us to let us know.

Back in June 2025, 3 of our supporters over that month when we were gathering safety data asked the NPDC to record the injury that had happened in their situations. Staff advised all 3 of them there was no mechanism to record data.

The 18^th December Council meeting had many Councillors mentioning they could not vote on removing the Tim Tams due to a distinct lack of data of what has actually been happening with incidents or injuries. The word “distinct” was used at that meeting.

So mid January we are aware of yet another person who has no acknowledgment of their complaint.

We did an OIA to see what the NPDC had recorded up to 25^th January, the day we lodged our OIA.

The incident we knew had been phoned in was not shown on the NPDC report we received back. 6 incidents were recorded, none of these involved any injuries, there was one cyclist near miss and no detail with why car tyres were damaged.

In the same 25 days we are aware of 15 incidents – 13 of them of concern for cycleway safety:

• 4 cyclist injuries – 3 taken to hospital by ambulance
• 5 cyclist near misses
• 3 damaged vehicles, one with a car failing to stop coming out of an intersection and one with a cyclist riding in front of their car across the road, followed by the cyclists dog. The damage to the driver’s car was not caused by the driver, it was caused by trying to not hit another road user in the wrong place.
• 1 ambulance stuck in traffic

What people have told us, and what has managed to get to the NPDC, and then what actually gets recorded by the NPDC, are two very different pictures.

The lack of safety with the Devon Street West Cycleway, for all users, is not going to be fixed UNTIL all the incidents happening are encouraged to be reported to the NPDC, and they are actually written down.

The NPDC Facebook Page, and other apps, need regular updates reminding people to let the Council know if near misses, incidents or injuries have happened on the cycleway and where.

We will continue with our Safety Data Reporting until the community is satisfied that the NPDC is recording what is happening.