‘Hallelujah!’ MP wins promise of towpath repairs
There is hope that an impassible river towpath will receive the restoration it needs after a fouryear wait.
A section of the footpath bank between Aylesford and Maidstone crumbled into the River Medway at the start of the Covid lockdown in spring 2020 and has remained closed since.
Tracey Crouch, the MP for Chatham and Aylesford, herself a keen cyclist, has often pressed for repairs and on Wednesday last week she finally got the answer she wanted to hear.
During a debate in Westminster Hall on cycling trails, Ms Crouch again raised the matter of the towpath with the Parliamentary Under-Seccretary for
Transport, Guy Opperman. Ms Crouch, who had officially opened the route in 2017, described the trail as “a wonderful path” that had been “much loved and well used”. She said as it was flat, it was perfect for teaching children how to ride a bike.
But she said: “I’ve been campaigning constantly ever since the subsidence for it to be fixed.
“It is a regular grumble on local residents’ pages.”
She said it had been the main off-road walk from Aylesford to Maidstone, used by several thousand people a month, before its closure.
She said: “It feels like such a wasted resource for walkers, riders and runners alike.”
The minister said: “I am aware that Kent County Council has been working with Active Travel England to undertake further design and assurance work to put the scheme forward under the active travel fund extension programme.
“I can confirm that I have approved recommendations for funding through the programme.
“Although I cannot announce the funding for the scheme today, we expect to announce further capital and revenue funding allocations very shortly.
“I sincerely hope that I will be jumping on my bike and coming down to Aylesford to meet Ms Crouch and anyone else so that we can formally announce the work on the Aylesford river path that she has so assiduously sought.”
Ms Crouch later tweeted : “Some good news, Hallelujah!”
The repair cost was previously estimated at £1 million. No start date has been set.