A town councillor has claimed that "Alsager deserves better" and highlighted that Cheshire East Council should have "at the very least" notified residents, who live on the surrounding Lodge Road streets about the implications the controversial active travel scheme would bring.

Nub News reported that councillors urged Cheshire East to listen to the growing number of objections submitted against the borough's active travel measure and to scrap the "experimental" scheme.

Speaking at today's (Tuesday) Cheshire East Council Cabinet meeting, Alsager Town councillor Sue Helliwell stated that in August, Cheshire East published a press release on their website informing residents that nine active travel schemes would be implemented across the borough.

However, in the media release, the authority stated that a scheme in Knutsford had been withdrawn due to the amount of negative feedback received from the community.

This led to Cllr Helliwell informing cabinet that Alsager's scheme was still in place despite there being over 330 consultation responses submitted (at the time of Cllr Helliwell writing to cabinet), with an overwhelming majority calling for the scheme to be scrapped.

Cllr Helliwell highlighted that the Lodge Road scheme has had a negative knock-on effect on the volume of increased traffic going down Pikemere Road past the primary school.

The town councillor asked cabinet whether Cheshire East was considering enforcing active travel measures on Pikemere Road or "if they would consider scrapping the scheme completely and listen to Alsager residents and allow us to have a say on what goes on in our town".

Cllr Helliwell informed cabinet members that residents who live on Close Lane had recently been notified by a gas company called Cadent, through door knocking, detailing what work would be carried out within the vicinity and provided homeowners with an informative leaflet.

The town councillor for Alsager used this as an example as to how Cheshire East should have at the "very least" notified residents on the surrounding Lodge Road streets and explained why the active travel measure was needed.

Cllr Helliwell concluded: "Alsager deserves better."

Cllr Laura Crane, Cheshire East Council cabinet member for highways and waste, responded: "I do understand the concerns that you have. These measures are experimental in nature and part of the consultation is seeing them on the ground and seeing how behaviour can potentially change.

"We are trying to encourage people to get active and to cycle and walk more and this scheme came from the Sustainable Mode of Transport for Schools Measures."

Cllr Crane confirmed that Cheshire East had spoken with Alsager School again since the scheme had been put into place to understand the school's concerns and asked what adjustments could be made to make the scheme "work better" for the community.

At the time of publishing this article, there had been 408 comments on the Lodge Road active travel scheme.

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