Chesterfield Cycle Campaign

One of our members went to Staveley along the canal path yesterday and filed this report;

As the weather forecast yesterday promised strong wind and rain later, four of us from the Spire group decided to follow a low route that was short, and decided to investigate the re-opened part around Staveley.

The fence across the trail before Staveley had its center piece and closure notice removed, confirming our belief.  The first part

of the old track that had become overgrown, had some of the herbage cut back, but the track itself was now less than a foot wide.

Then we came to the new part.  The first hundred yards was made up of coarse gravel and clay, our wheels sinking in, though we managed to pedal through without too much effort.  We then reached a part that had a better surface with a rolled aggregate finish.  This went under the new track & canal bridge where it was good to find the width of the track was not reduced, as at the new bridges nearer to Chesterfield.

After the bridge, the track turns sharp left away from the canal and ends in a contractors spoil heap which is completely impassable on a bicycle.  We manage to drag our bikes across a part of it onto the road that took us back into Staveley.

This raises two questions:-

Why does TPT say the track is reopened without having inspected it?

Are we going to have to put up with another second rate track when roads in the same place are having £millions spent on them with immaculate surfaces?