Peaks & Puddles 🚲
@peaksandpuddles.com
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Peak District cycling. Cycle routes, active travel news & local exploring in the Peak edges of Derbyshire, Cheshire & Greater Manchester, where Stockport meets the High Peak • Anthony 👋 peaksandpuddles.com
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20splenty.bsky.social
It would be great if we could take a whole country and change the default speed limit to 20mph and then compare it to one left at 30mph. What if it reduced casualties by 25% and with lower risk reduced insurance premiums by £45 a year? Well it did! bit.ly/4gIBPlJ
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nationaltrust.org.uk
Climate change is already damaging the nature, beauty and heritage we care for. Without deep and sustained cuts to emissions, nature faces an even more perilous future and the places people love will continue to suffer.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Tories pledge to scrap landmark climate legislation
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says her party would axe legally binding targets to cut emissions.
www.bbc.co.uk
peaksandpuddles.com
I thought so, remember when they patched it before?! 😅
Steep lane with about 5,000 asphalt pothole patches.
peaksandpuddles.com
Blimey, up Silk Hill?! I did that uphill recently for the first time in years and it’s a horror!

Second Thibault’s comment, the best unofficial way back around the canal bridge will be the ramp into Tesco and a gentler gravel path, avoiding the cobbled horse ramps. I tweaked it recently on OSM.
Screenshot from Open Cycle Map showing Whaley Bridge Junction.
peaksandpuddles.com
Derbyshire County Council somehow mark this as ‘Completed Key Cycle Network’ on their map!
peaksandpuddles.com
Imagine being so triggered by bikes to use torx screws! I almost admire the determination of this apparent Rogue Sign Installer of the Goyt Valley.
peaksandpuddles.com
Thanks but believe me I am abundantly familiar with the complexities of this particular path, definitive maps etc! It has been a saga for years. And now (see latest post) it appears the signs were not installed by either organisation. National Park hope to have it designated a permissive route.
peaksandpuddles.com
And the end of the saga is: Peak District ranger has now removed the no cycling signs which weren’t put up by PDNP or United Utilities! They’re now waiting on UU to grant the route as a permissive bridleway and finalising legalities (why didn’t UU note any of this in their FOI response?).
peaksandpuddles.com
Just to note again, @peakdistrict.bsky.social literally stated in a report to the Local Access Forum that the new gates were being installed to allow legitimate permissive cycling and horse riding access (as many of us have enjoyed unquestioned for 20+ years). The saga continues.
peaksandpuddles.com
This report from the Peak District National Park explicitly notes the new gates are intended to allow access by cyclists and horse riders as a proposed permissive bridleway. What went wrong - or perhaps the signs were indeed placed by an individual? democracy.peakdistrict.gov.uk/documents/s6...
Minutes on access for all works by the National Parks, stating “at Fernilee Reservoir, new gates are being installed for a new Miles without
Stiles route and access by cyclists and horse riders.”
peaksandpuddles.com
United Utilties have replied: “We believe that the no cycling signs may have also been installed at the same time [as the new gates], by the [Peak District National Park] staff. The message conveyed by the signs is correct, as the path has never been an official cycle path, as aforementioned.”
peaksandpuddles.com
Fernilee reservoir old railway trail. If like me you thought the battle for this to be a defacto bridleway was won when the kissing gates were replaced by easy open bridleway gates: no.

The saga continues and we must fight this absolute nonsense from United Utilities and @peakdistrict.bsky.social.
New wide 1.5m bridleway gate on access to 3m+ wide old railway trail along reservoir. A new “no cycling” sign has appeared beside. Close up of large “no cycling” sign fixed with torx screws no less. Similar no cycling sign on gate post at southern end near Errwood. The trail was improved as a “miles without stiles” route intended for all abilities and wheeled mobility devices.
peaksandpuddles.com
Everyone’s favourite I’m sure! Someone could probably mount a whole anti-new-town campaign based on this viewpoint alone. (And you bet they’d probably not even connect the housing to the trail properly)
peaksandpuddles.com
The proximity of this and other developments (soulless car-centric Woodford) to a National Park boundary seems to be entirely ignored time and again.

Here the distance from these possible 10,000+ new houses to that yellow line is one mile. The harm would spread far beyond their two-car driveways.
peaksandpuddles.com
Your favourite bench on Middlewood Way could soon be just a view of massive greenbelt housing sprawl, under proposals for a new town at Adlington.

Dire implications for surrounding lanes and National Park landscape, especially the Brickworks which would fully become a major east-west traffic route.
The bench on Middlewood Way near Higher Doles Farm, looking out over green farmland owned largely by the Adlington Hall Estate, recently sold to developer Belport. The landscape is a wide, clear green break between the sprawl of Manchester and Cheshire towns like Macclesfield. Map showing the extent of Adlington Hall Estate land recently put up for sale, spanning both sides of the A523 around existing sparse houses and farms, coming within metres of the Peak District National Park boundary.
peaksandpuddles.com
Headstone, Cressbrook and Litton tunnels on the Monsal Trail will be closed this Wednesday 17th September from 9am to 1pm, due to National Grid works cutting the power supply.
peaksandpuddles.com
September skies over Lyme.

Don’t forget you can still get completely free entry to the house and garden when cycling or using public transport until the end of this month!

www.peaksandpuddles.com/cycle-routes...
The frontage of Lyme Hall lit by sun with dark skies above. A bright rose garden scene below blue skies and dark grey clouds. Moorland lodge known as The Cage lit by sunlight against grey clouds and distant black, Dark Peak hills.
peaksandpuddles.com
Winding roads to Windgather
The dashed centre line of a road disappears over the crest of a hill. In the distance, another road snaked up a steep green hillside to a sharp gritstone outcrop, Windgather Rocks.
peaksandpuddles.com
No, this is the access onto each end of the traffic-free path.

maps.app.goo.gl/EE8mavS5U8oW...
maps.app.goo.gl
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walkridegm.org.uk
Fed up with pavement parking?

We're supporting @livingstreets.bsky.social to show where pavements are used as car parks to the detriment of all who walk/wheel.

Go & take photos (make sure you cover over reg numbers) & upload them to the Living Streets map: lnkd.in/ekEmPn3q

Contribute by 22 Nov
A red car covering most of a pavement on a residential street. There are other cars covering the pavement further along the road.
peaksandpuddles.com
20 years use to submit a DMMO but a hugely long-winded process which the council apparently has a huge backlog on! The National Park at least have been working on formalising it as a “permissive” bridleway which would probably be enough. Awaiting answers from UU for now. bsky.app/profile/peak...
peaksandpuddles.com
This report from the Peak District National Park explicitly notes the new gates are intended to allow access by cyclists and horse riders as a proposed permissive bridleway. What went wrong - or perhaps the signs were indeed placed by an individual? democracy.peakdistrict.gov.uk/documents/s6...
Minutes on access for all works by the National Parks, stating “at Fernilee Reservoir, new gates are being installed for a new Miles without
Stiles route and access by cyclists and horse riders.”
peaksandpuddles.com
This report from the Peak District National Park explicitly notes the new gates are intended to allow access by cyclists and horse riders as a proposed permissive bridleway. What went wrong - or perhaps the signs were indeed placed by an individual? democracy.peakdistrict.gov.uk/documents/s6...
Minutes on access for all works by the National Parks, stating “at Fernilee Reservoir, new gates are being installed for a new Miles without
Stiles route and access by cyclists and horse riders.”
peaksandpuddles.com
Not a particularly helpful or relevant comment, if I’m honest!
peaksandpuddles.com
Yeah basically. Though there’s no signage saying what *is* allowed and it’s never even been marked on maps as such.