Shared Space

Shared Use in Woking Town Centre

During the Cycle Woking period (2008-2011) we were able to join up all the radial routes from Woking Town Centre by obtaining a traffic order to allow shared use through the pedestrian areas of Commercial Way, Town Square, Gloucester Walk and Peacocks Walk. Unfortunately the disabled pressure group in Woking objected to the traffic order being made permanent. A consultation followed which showed two-thirds of people were in favour of shared use and a recording of incidents showed there was only one minor incident in two years of shared use and in that incident the pedestrian acknowledged that he may have been at fault.

Despite all this evidence, the council decided to restrict cycling on these routes so that cycling would be permitted only outside the hours of 10am to 4pm. That restriction will be introduced very soon. We have fought a long battle against this restriction and recently have received a pretty clear assurance from John Kingsbury, chair of the Local Committee, that, following improvements to Commercial Way, the restriction would be reviewed and would expect to reintroduce unrestricted shared use along that route. You may be sure that we shall hold the Local Committee to this promise.

We will try to keep you informed when the peak time cycling ban is introduced. At present you are permitted to cycle through the town centre on all the routes mentioned above. Note that Church Path and Mercia Walk are and always have been no cycling routes.