Our Green Future!

6.53.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 1st Oct 2007

Wera Hobhouse - Our environmental champion!

Rochdale Borough has been shortlisted to become part of the Connect 2 bid aimed at getting £50 million of Lottery money to create or improve vital walking and cycling links. Cllr.Wera Hobhouse, who is chairing the Steering group in Rochdale Borough for moving the bid forward, explains: 'Currently many of our communities are separated by either big roads, railway lines, canals or rivers making even short journeys impossible to master on foot or by bicycle, leaving as the only alternative car journeys on congested roads. The idea behind Connect 2 is to change this. It's a big project across 79 Councils coordinated by SUSTRANS, the National Cycle Charity and we are really proud that our scheme in Rochdale has made it onto the shortlist.'

The idea behind the Rochdale scheme is to use the Rochdale Canal as a spine route connecting all parts of the Borough to the canal on safe off-road lanes which would allow safe car free travel from one end of the Borough to the other away from our busy main roads.

Wera said, "I am sure many more people would walk or cycle or would allow their children to walk or bicycle if we had more safe, off road walking and cycling lanes. Often these routes already exist, but they are in bad condition, overgrown, badly lit and full of litter so nobody uses them. We want to create a whole network of safe routes and the money we would get through the Connect 2 bid would be a great start."

Whether Connect 2 will win the Lottery money is going to be decided by public vote at the beginning of December.