Plans for a £4million cycle lane have been blasted by seaside town locals who claim it will cause a ‘nightmare’ for drivers and pedstrians. 

The controversial lane which is to run along the seafront in Hove, East Sussex – was first unveiled two years ago and was due to cost around £475,000.

But the scheme, which involves closing a traffic lane to make way for a double cycle lane, has now been expanded with costs ballooning to almost 10 times the original estimate.

Last week the new cycle lane was given the green light by councillors on Brighton & Hove City Council.

But it has been met with anger among residents, businesses, pedestrians and cyclists who branded it an ‘incoherent plan’ drawn up without ‘thought, consultation or common sense.’

Locals in Hove, East Sussex, have blasted an ‘incoherent’ green scheme to build a £4million double cycle. Pictured: Cyclists using the main road to cycle West on A259

The controversial lane was first unveiled two years ago and was due to cost around £475,000

The £4million cycle lane will to run along the seafront in Hove, East Sussex, pictured

Dan Rose, a caterer, said: ‘It is incoherent, ill-thought out and wrong-headed and a waste of public money.

‘It has been drawn up by a political elite to tick all sorts of boxes without anyone using their common sense.

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‘It’s far too expensive. £4m for a cycle lane is just too much. I’d like to know why it is costing so much.’

Currently there are two lanes of traffic heading west out of Brighton and Hove on the A259 with cyclists being diverted onto the beachfront promenade when the dedicated lane runs out.

The new scheme involves removing one lane between Fourth Avenue and the Hove Street traffic lights, near the King Alfred Leisure Centre.

That stretch of the new lane will run alongside the group of businesses, Victoria Terrace, which have plied their trade on Hove seafront for more than a 100 years.

Alison Taylor, who runs hairdresser’s Off Yer Head said: ‘It’s going to be an absolute nightmare. The council is going to put a couple of loading bays in but there are more than a dozen businesses along here. How are they meant to get deliveries if the bays are taken?

‘The Neptune pub also gets weekly deliveries from a dray lorry and the lorry will have to completely block the single carriageway to make their deliveries which will cause traffic chaos and make it very dangerous.

‘Also many of my older clients get dropped off by taxi and they may be forced to double-park. The whole thing fills me with dread.’ 

The new cycle lane was given the green light by councillors on Brighton & Hove City Council last week

The scheme involves closing a traffic lane to make way for a double cycle lane. Pictured: Brighton beach in Brighton and Hove, East Sussex

Andy Wagstaff-Clarke, pictured, said: ‘It is worrying because it doesn’t make a great deal of sense but it is also very, very expensive. I am a keen cyclist and even I don’t agree with it’

Andy Wagstaff-Clarke, who delivers to the row of businesses, said: ‘It is going to make this stretch in front of the businesses very dangerous as people will be pulling in and out of the loading bays or waiting for one to become free.

‘It is worrying because it doesn’t make a great deal of sense but it is also very, very expensive. I am a keen cyclist and even I don’t agree with it.’

Cyclist Jade Carmen, an artist, said: ‘I’m a cyclist and I regularly use this route. They want to stop the cycle lane being diverted along the beachfront but there is nothing wrong with doing that – it’s actually nicer being able to see the sea rather than the busy road.

‘The cost of £4m is unjustifiable. How can it possibly have gone up by so much. I don’t agree with it at all.’

Cyclist Jane Edwards said: ‘It’s preposterous it should cost so much. I can’t see the sense in spending that much money on it.

‘I drive as well and taking out a lane of traffic on what is already a busy road will just slow traffic down, cayuse traffic james and increase pollution. I don’t support the plans at all.’

Even Bricycles – a cycling campaign group – said it cannot support the plans as it removes funding from areas which desperately money to improve cycling lanes.

The scheme was initially drawn up when the council was controlled by the Green Party.

However it was put on ‘pause’ when Labour took overall control of the local authority in May 2023.

A spokesperson for Bricycles said: ‘Work was due to start on the A259 active travel scheme between Fourth Avenue and Hove Lagoon in June 2023. It was halted just hours before the diggers moved in. 

The new lane has been met with anger among residents, businesses, pedestrians and cyclists who branded it an ‘incoherent plan’. ‘Pictured: Brighton beach

Cyclist Jane Edwards, left, said: ‘It’s preposterous it should cost so much. I can’t see the sense in spending that much money on it’

A cyclist pictured using the cycle lane on promenade looking East

Council leader Bella Sankey said it was a ‘pause’ so a better design could be completed. The council then had to give the contractor £19,000 for every week of the ‘pause’ until they could agree to a fee that the Council would have to pay for terminating the contract.

At the time the council said the redesign would take ‘up to six months’ and that it would be a ‘win-win-win’. In the event it has taken a year.

‘So it’s highly unlikely that any of the millions of pounds the council was awarded, by the Department for Transport, to make the A259 safer for everyone will be spent before June 2025.’

The council has applied for a £1.2m grant from Active Travel England but must find £2.8 out of taxpayers’ money.

‘It’s far too expensive,’ said resident Andrew Mitchell. ‘It just doesn’t make sense to spend that kind of money only for cyclists to use the road – which they undoubtedly will like they do now.’

The aim of the scheme is to join up with a proposed cycle lane on the Adur and West Sussex side of the border as part of the National Cycle Network route 2 from Dover in Kent, to St Austell in Cornwall.

Brighton & Hove City Council said it couldn’t comment as they were currently operating in a pre-election period and were bound by strict rules.