Introducing, in the red corner, Raging Russell Porter!!! And, in the blue corner... Shelton New Road's cycle lane...

The disgruntled resident, dubbed with a fantastic wrestling title by the Stoke Sentinel (link is external), took to the local press, furious with the council's extended segregated cycle lane in Hanley.

Calling the lane a "bloomin disgrace", Raging Russell added: "The cycle lane is dangerous and how it's got planning permission I have no idea — when you come down to the bridge, two vehicles can't pass.

"Cyclists don't use the damn thing anyway. Why they have to make a cycle lane that’s 6ft with the kerb is bloody bonkers — there's no road left, it's crazy. There already was a cycle lane but it was lined and it was three feet, that's all you need for a cyclist. They've extended that away from the kerb into the middle of the road and now the road is too narrow."

How the lane looked previously...
Shelton New Road (Google Maps)

(Stoke Sentinel's story (link is external) has better images of how the lane looks now, including the one further way up this post)

"It’'s a complete shambles and a waste of money. They plough money into anything which isn’t required," Raging Russel continued.

"It was quite safe as it was and there was no need for this new cycle lane. If they get away with this, they are going to be doing it all around the Potteries. I feel like they just do what they want, it's ridiculous. They didn't put signs up asking people what they think and if we had said no they would've still done it anyway. The roads in Stoke-on-Trent are a disgrace and you need a Jeep to go around the city."

It seems some at the council agree... the deputy council leader and cabinet member for regeneration, infrastructure and heritage said the lane is "not useful" and is "one of the worst government schemes of recent times because it was rushed, it wasn't thought through".

"We were told by the government that we had to bid for them. We bid for as little as we can get away with in Stoke-on-Trent because I was not convinced that the scheme would be useful. It wasn't enough money to do something proper but we had to bid for it," Cllr Dan Jellyman (another great name) said.

"We ended up having to do these little schemes like this because the government made us. The Active Travel Fund is one of the worst wastes of taxpayers' money." That's the spirit...

"It doesn't achieve what it's meant to achieve. The point of the scheme was to try and encourage people to get out of their cars and onto bikes. Putting a bit of kerbing and white lines on a couple of roads doesn’t get people on bikes.

"The government rushed it and gave enough money so that they can say we've done something but it's not enough to have a proper transformation so I totally understand why residents feel this way.

"I've seen it myself on Shelton New Road, it's not very impressive. It could've been a lot worse if the city council bid for more money."

https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-live-blog-24-august-2022-295447#live-blog-item-36845