St Anthony's cycle route access issues
The off-road cycle route between Woodbridge Road and Spring Road leads from the end of St Anthony's Crescent through to Trafalgar Close and could potentially be a useful link between these two roads, which are short of pleasant and safe link routes for cyclists.
However, the route is beset by at least 4 sets of barriers which are two narrow to ride through with a cargo bike, tricycle, bakfiets, hand-bike or similar. They do have a higher barrier which you can push a bike under, but this requires 4 dismounts which makes this totally impracticable as a cycle route and the barriers are still too low to pass under with a child in a bike seat.
It is clear from parallel tracks through the woods that a lot of cyclists simply bypass these barriers, but I can't see any possible reason why these are needed and why access control can't be provided by a set of sensibly spaced bollards. I presume the intention is to keep motor cycles off the route, but this seems like total overkill and in any event they could simply bypass the barriers if determined to do so.
There is no justification whatever for having 4 sets - surely if there is an effective barrier at each end then the middle ones are entirely pointless.
It appears to me that whichever authority is responsible for this route have failed to consider their duty to disabled users of the route (including disabled cyclists) as well as ignoring cargo bike users and cyclists with children.
These barriers should be removed and replaced with more conventional bollards to prevent vehicle access (and could then presumably be lifted out to allow vehicles which are required for maintenance etc.).