Public Space Protection Orders
/Whilst Lancashire County Council is busily consulting on another sustainable transport route, and how they can make cycling safer, Lancaster City Council are consulting on whether cycling in the city centre should be considered as anti-social behaviour.
It would apear that despite having declared a climate emergency one thing that absolutely cannot be tollerated in Lancaster is cheap and sustainable local transport. Several Local Authorities have already managed to use PSPOs to establish themselves as anti-cycling councils, with Grimsby doing very well at it. A very common theme amongst these councils is that they have doen nothing to make cycling any less dangerous on any of the possible alternative routes, and Lancaster certainly fits very well into that category.
We are especially concerned to see that the questions address behaviour whilst drinking, whilst the in relation to cycling the council are asking about a restriction on cycling, without any suggestion that the manner of cycling should be inconsiderate to be anti-social for a restriction to be desirable. We are concerned with the framing of cycling as an anti-social behaviour and that this would be a case of a PSPO not being used correctly: it is framed as a blanket ban on an individual’s choice of transport, rather than being focussed on anti-social behaviour.