Please respond to the borough council's Hunstanton Masterplan consultation if you live, work or visit the town. The consultation finishes on Friday and can be found at www.west-norfolk.gov.uk/hunstantonmasterplan plus there is a drop-in session at Hunstanton Town Hall today (Monday 2 Feb) 10am-7pm. Here are some thoughts...

The last masterplan was 18 years ago and contained five primary cycle routes, with one extension route. None of them were completed. Since then, the Norfolk Countywide Local Cycling and Walking Implementation Plan was approved in 2024 with five primary routes and eight secondary routes, shown on the map below, all of which should have had feasibility studies done last year with detailed design work to be done this year. We've heard nothing about any of them except for the very first part of the red route to Old Hunstanton, PR1/01 on the map.

There were also plans for two links out of town, one to Ingoldisthorpe via Ken Hill and Snettisham which is being delivered in part from now until 2027 by Wild Ken Hill with details on their blog, and one to the National Cycle Network at Ringstead which we've heard nothing about. Again, these were planned to have feasibility studies in plan year one (2024/5) and detailed designs in year two (2025/6).

Against this backdrop, it disappoints me that the masterplan exhibition only mentions integrating with this slow-moving strategy and creating one new walking and cycling priority space at The Gateway which is proposed to be developed on the current Southend Car Park. Nothing seems to be suggested to tackle the conflicts between cycling and motoring on Seagate Road (PR3/02) or South Beach Road (PR1/11) which look like they'll be an even busier car park access route as well as part of primary cycle routes. There's no hint yet that they intend to take the tough-but-necessary choices about which roads to prioritise cycling on and which to prioritise buses on, nor is it clear if cycling will be allowed in all pedestrianised zones, like in Norwich and as government policy recommends.

So please bear this in mind when answering the consultation. Of course, in immediate terms, I suggest saying that improving walking and cycling links and prioritising pedestrians and cyclists are both very important, but also improving public transport links because that helps get cars off the road too. Answer the rest as you think best. There seem to be some errors in the survey design, so feel free to put "no comment" in required boxes if you've nothing to say.

So before Friday, please visit www.west-norfolk.gov.uk/hunstantonmasterplan and ask your cycling friends to, too!