Hayling Billy Trail Update 2

HAYLING BILLY TRAIL

ACTIVE TRAVEL FUND ROUND 4 (ATF4) PROJECT

KEY INFORMATION WHAT?

Improvement of Trail surface to all-weather

WHY?

To encourage use of the Trail as an alternative to traveling by car standard over the northern 1.2 km on the Island

COST?

£600,000

WHEN?

Planned for winter 2023 / 24

BACKGROUND

Hampshire County Council has successfully bid for £600,000 for funding to improve the north end of the Billy Trail on Hayling. The award is from Active Travel England. The funding has to be committed for spending by 31st March 2024 – in practice this means that a contractor has to be appointed and ready to build the scheme by that date.

The Hayling Billy Trail is owned by Hampshire County Council. Their Countryside Service looks after maintenance and are the client in charge of the project. Havant Borough Council’s Civil Engineering and Landscape Team (CELT) has been awarded the commission from the County Council to design the scheme, building on their long and successful association with the route. Implementation will be by a contractor appointed by the County Council.

WHAT’S INVOLVED The project will involve putting a new surface on the Trail. This is intended to be an asphalt surface, similar to that already used on the mainland parts of the Trail, which will make this section usable in all weather conditions.

Billy Trail, looking south

THE PROJECT

Billy Trail ATF4 Project

This 1.2km long section of the Trail between the Havant Road car park (opposite the ‘Applegreen’ garage) and North Hayling Halt car park (to the rear of the ‘Esso’ garage) was chosen as the first stage to be improved, because other work has already been carried out on it. The new ‘orange’ surface is less than 10 years old, and the southern end near the Victoria Road car park (behind Esso) is regularly used by heavy lorries for access to the Oysterbeds so is known to be sound. The funding award requires very fast design and implementation, and on other sections of the Trail design would have taken longer, and the County Council would probably have not been awarded any funding.

Havant Road

North Hayling

Stoke

West Lane

Once completed and built, it is hoped that this first section will act as a proof of concept for upgrading the rest of the Trail all the way down to the Station Theatre, and then onwards to the beach by way of Staunton Avenue.

As part of the design, we’ll also be looking at drainage improvements and waymarking, taking account, not only of the shortly-expected establishment of the King Charles III England Coast Path along part of this length, but that it already forms part of Sustrans’ National Cycle Network and is part of the Shipwrights Way long distance footpath

WHAT ELSE IS BEING DONE?

WHERE ARE WE NOW? Following many years of campaigning by local councils and stakeholders, and having carried out a variety of feasibility studies into various options, we are pleased to announce that Active Travel England has awarded Hampshire County Council £600,000 of funding through the Active Travel Fund (round 4) to upgrade the northern section of the Hayling Billy Trail (from the car park opposite the ‘Applegreen’ garage, southwards to the car park on the shore behind the ‘Esso’ garage). This 1.2km section will be resurfaced so that it can become a truly all-weather, all-year route to give walkers, scooters, cyclists and mobility impaired users a more attractive and safer off-road route. It is expected that the scheme will be on site early next year.

WHAT ELSE?

Elsewhere on the Trail, we have cleared an inland alternative route north of the West Lane bends along the original line of West Lane which used to run direct from the double bends, north to the shore. We were amazed to find the original lane is still there complete with gates, ditches and fences!

The intention of this alternative route is that it will remain available when flooding affects the Billy Trail at Knotts Marsh pond.

In the more distant future, we are in the early stages of design to complete a link along Staunton Avenue between the Station Theatre and Sea Front.

The remainder of the Trail is being looked at through a feasibility study on behalf of HCC; we are preparing designs so that if funding opportunities arise in the future, then the rest of the Trail can be upgraded to the same standard as the ATF4 section.

WHAT’S NEXT?

In parallel with the £600,000 awarded from Active Travel England, a further sum of £50,000 from Hampshire County Council is being matched by £50,000 of Havant Council’s Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) so that we can produce a detailed feasibility design into the rest of the route on the Island. This design, and the report that will support it, will include considering links to and from the Trail to the eastern parts of the Island, together with options for alternative inland routes which could be built as sections of the existing route become more impacted by the effects of sea level Havant Road rise and coastal erosion. These links North will include the road between the Hayling Havant Road / Victoria Road junction KEY and the North Hayling Halt car park, which is now owned by Hampshire ATF4 Project County Council after many years HCC Funded of having no owner at all (and feasibility hence suffering from significant Stoke design of Trail and Links surface defects); the footpath connecting to Denhill Close HCC Funded West Lane and Saltmarsh Lane; and the feasibility design on path between the West Lane highway bends westwards to the Trail, meeting it at the WWII pill HBC CIL Manor Road Funded box.

In the short term, we are

preliminary design alternative route

Newtown

making plans to upgrade

HBC CIL Funded SSSI project

the existing trodden route

across the Beachlands SSSI south of Staunton Avenue.

Eastoke

Licences are now in place

to build this section before Christmas – look out for

details of a public event later in November.

MORE INFORMATION More details including up to date news and FAQs are available on the Havant Borough website at: www.havant.gov.uk/hayling-billy-trail

South Hayling Eastoke

Sandy Point