Improvements to walking and cycling in Bengeo are one of the key proposed interventions in the South East Growth and Transport Plan | Hertfordshire County Council. The Bengeo proposals are primarily about improving pedestrian and cycle routes from the new housing development near Bengeo Primary School to Hertford North rail station, discouraging pavement parking, and increasing cycle parking.
Bengeo’s residents are responding to the consultation on the Plan and recommending that Hertfordshire County Council include measures to improve the pedestrian and cycle connection to Hartham Common, Hertford town centre, and between Hertford’s two rail stations. The disused railway line in Bengeo, which starts in the west near Beane Road and exits in the east near Port Hill, close to Hartham, could go some way to achieving that.
Although the former railway line is privately owned, and has been fenced off for around 60 years, a foot and cycle route along it would help achieve the Growth and Transport Plan’s aim to ‘facilitate more convenient journeys by bike and on foot within and between Bengeo and other parts of Hertford, including the town centre and railway stations’. Public access could also help improve nature conservation on the land, and, perhaps, enable the installation of information boards, recognising the land’s railway heritage.
The consultation on the Plan closes on the 31 March. If you support a foot and cycle path on the former railway line in Bengeo, please email GTP@hertfordshire.gov.uk and say you’re responding to the Growth and Transport Plan consultation. You may wish to suggest that Hertfordshire County Council consider the purchase of the land to help achieve a foot and cycle path on it.
To spread the word on the consultation, and to highlight the importance of conserving and protecting the former railway line’s natural habitat and its wildlife, residents are distributing a flyer to local addresses. Another resident has put some great maps and photographs together to demonstrate the potential for extending the Cole Green Way to Hartham Common, incorporating disused railway lines, including the former railway land in Bengeo. http://www.stevebeeston.com/the-missing-link/
If you’re on Facebook, and haven’t done so already, you may wish to join the ‘Lower Bengeo Railway’ Facebook Group Lower Bengeo Railway | Facebook. Alternatively, email lowerbengeoeast@gmail.com for occasional updates on the former railway land.
by Brenda Heninghem