Ha! They could have waited, but then we'd never have had this image

Images show a man cycling across a bridge through the Olympic park with his hands in his pockets in the early morning, and mist on the river Lea near the Velodrome building

Exactly! I met the chap responsible actually, at one of my book talks (the book has a chapter 'flipping Boris the Bird' - he said it was a reflex

As far as I know - no! Though I haven't looked beyond English-speaking nations I'm afraid... interesting how the 'collided with car' language is so similar in your example to in English publications though

We should dig those guys up, ask how they did it! Different times, though

frustrating - it was probably for the same reasons only 1% of councils do it: cost, resourcing, a lack of successful case studies

If you're interested in the relative merits of CPO and path creation orders PJA produced this document on them northnorthants.moderngov.co.uk/documents/s1...

I think it's easy to assume they're doing nothing but as the council officer I quoted anonymously put it, "We can’t spend time on more than one difficult route at once. It takes all our effort to progress it an imperial inch per year.” i.e. the system is fundamentally broken.

Oxfordshire have 9.2 miles of greenway held up by landowners. They sometimes mention creation orders (not CPO) as backup. It "normally needs a strong public need (safety) justification rather than a route just being a logical connection". They've used path creation orders where landowner was unknown

Bucks even co-produced guidance for other local authorities to tackle rural paths... bare-analysis.co.uk/download-you...
Waddesdon Greenway, part of the wider Bucks Greenway, is a huge success, and I believe a new section of the latter opened formally yesterday - the Misbourne Greenway

Thanks Alan. Bucks are one of the star councils on this, IMO - they haven't decided on CPO use yet, either way...it's political but cost, resourcing and case studies (lack of) are issues. They said the previous administration tried a path creation order, unsuccessfully (due to legal challenge)

That was the point the council officer quoted talks about. Councils have little of either, sadly. If land assembly were simpler/ there was a body organising that element a lot of other problems would fall away. There's a few funds for cycle routes, there is some money

Dogs are a major concern for landowners, but there are also fences you can use to stop them straying near livestock

Wow, sounds classic. Hills are a big deterrent to cycling so it would be unfortunate. Perhaps they need to speak to Devon council... the yellow dotted line on that map is CPO'd land, then there's path creation orders

Yes there's that perception, and the legal costs apparently. But strangely not for roads. Path creation orders achieve the same aims, less aggressively, but they too are rare. Councils need gov support at this stage to assemble land for routes or progress will be very very slow

Those are separate categories, considered but not used and successfully used

I removed the paywall because I want to share this more widely, but if you can consider subscribing you'll help me do more of this kind of work

Haha wow! One from the archives. Astonishing

Haha thank you. I'm glad to be back on the bike, and very glad of the ebike while I've been recovering!