Walking and Cycling Around Helston

Helping People to Leave the Car at Home

This Place Shaping Team have created a plan for improving cycling and walking routes within the town. The objective was to enable as many residents as possible to cycle to most of Helston’s key amenities (schools, town centre, medical centre, sports clubs etc.) without needing to cycle on a main road.

The plan also proposes new road crossings for pedestrians and improvements to several existing crossings. It also identifies locations for more cycle parking facilities in town.

To be capable of achieving funding the planning work followed the Governments guidelines (laid out in a document known as LTN1/20) and produced a formal Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan. This considered which routes are technically possible with enough space to the side of existing carriageways to enable ‘shared use’ pathways to be constructed. Shared use routes are preferably wide enough to accommodate separate lanes for cycling and walking to ensure segregation between walkers and cyclists.

1. 57% of commuter journeys in Helston are less than 5km; 36% less than 2km – around half of the traffic on Helston’s roads on a normal day is made up of Helston people driving around Helston.
2. Around 1.0% of Helston workers commute by cycle vs 5.0% – 7.0% Government target.
3. Around 5.8% of Culdrose workers commute by cycle vs 10.0% – 14.0% Government target.
4. An increase in commuting by cycle from 1.0% to 3.0% could see 300 fewer cars on Helston’s roads each morning.
5. Around 0.4% of students currently cycle to school vs 4.0% to 6.0% Government target.

The plan has a number of benefits:

1. It enables around 85% of Helston’s residents to access facilities by bike without needing to cycle on a main road.
2. It prioritises cycling and walking infrastructure improvements for future investment
3. It ensures that consideration is given to cycling and walking within both local planning and transport policies and strategies
4. And makes the case for future funding for walking and cycling infrastructure promoting a shift towards active travel, encouraging healthy lifestyles and assisting in reducing road traffic within the town

With this plan in place, we have already been able to secure funding from Cornwall Council to construct an upgraded crossing between Coronation Park and Penrose and a new pedestrian crossing in Meneage Road will be completed in Autumn 2023. Additional funding from the Community Infrastructure Levy Fund enabled the completion of the off-load link between Helston and Porthleven, achieved by a partnership between South Kerrier Alliance CIC and the National Trust.

The team is now working on proposals to improve the junctions and crossings across the A394 at the bottom of Monument Road and at The Parade.