Wantage to Harwell Campus "Icknield Greenway" cycleway now open

Oxfordshire County Council is pleased to announce completion of  five cycling routes, which make up the first phase of the award winning Science Vale Cycling Network (SVCN) project. Over 10km of improved cycle and pedestrian paths are now open to the public, linking the science and research centres at Harwell Campus, Milton Park and Culham Science Centre with Abingdon, Wantage and Didcot, including Didcot Parkway railway station.

Route 1 (B-K2): Wantage to Harwell Campus "Icknield Greenway"

This route (approx. 5000m) from West Lockinge, through Ardington Village to Hungerford Road, West Hendred  now allows cyclists traveling from Wantage to Harwell Campus to avoid the main roads of A417 and A4185 and should reduce their journeys, shared with road traffic, by over two miles, in each direction. Users can now benefit from improved, widened and surfaced paths (with Type 1 compacted stone), appropriate for this unique rural setting. The old wooden bridge, over the Ginge Brook, is now replaced with a 20m-long steel bridge with a wooden deck and parapets. Work also included dedication of two sections as bridleways to facilitate cycling and horse-riding.

The new cycle route width varies from 2.0m, where low user numbers are expected, to 3.6m, where shared use, with large agricultural machines, are allowed.

Improvements to approx. 5km of off-road byways, bridleways, footpaths and private paths, from West Lockinge, through Ardington Village to Hungerford Road, West Hendred. Work included dedication of two sections as bridleways to facilitate cycling and horse-riding. Replacement of the old wooden bridge, and steep hazardous slope, at Ginge Brook, widening of the paths, improved surfacing and drainage, signage and vegetation clearance along the full length of the new routes.

More here:-

• www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/residents/roads-and-transport/roadworks/major-current-roadworks/science-vale-cycle-network