This Is More Than Just a Cycle Path

Arbroath A Place For Everyone

In response to Steve Finan’s article in The Courier on the 3rd of April, titled £14m Arbroath A Place for Everyone scheme is ridiculous misuse of money, I’m offering a different perspective:

Just a “Cycle Path”? Try Again

A £14 million investment in a new network for walking, wheeling, and cycling in Arbroath — removing a dual carriageway that once split the town — doesn’t look like a vanity project to me.

Especially not in a place with some of the most deprived areas in Angus, where not everyone owns a car.

And it’s not just a “cycle path,” Steve. Have you been to Arbroath?

The route runs from the site of the old Seaforth Hotel to Guthrie Port Roundabout… “then where?”

Well, once the route is open, I imagine people will — surprisingly — join it from all directions, on foot and by wheel, and yes, some might even continue out towards Fisheracre!

I don’t think they’ll stop, bewildered, as if they’ve hit an invisible barrier.

This Isn’t About Sunday Bike Rides

Steve, with his detailed knowledge of cycling and Arbroath, proposes an alternative scenic route over the harbour and out to the cliffs.

A lovely idea — one that might make a nice Sunday spin. But active travel doesn’t mean a once-in-a-blue-moon bike ride.

It’s about everyday journeys: a short trip to Morrisons, the school run, or a student heading to the proposed new Dundee & Angus College campus.

These are the trips people could make safely, cleanly, and cheaply — if we design for them.

Who Exactly Is “Everyone” To You?

Steve’s stage two plan — Auchmithie, Lunan Bay, and Montrose — sounds great too.

But it’s telling that he thinks that would be a more fitting route for a project called A Place for Everyone.

Are we imagining wheelchair users or bairns on scooters tackling 13 miles of undulating coastal terrain?

Steve thinks the new route is awful. But his fantasy version — conveniently uncosted, unplanned, and politically untouchable — would “open up and celebrate Arbroath’s rich maritime history”? Really?

I also can’t help but wonder if Steve would be quite so keen on his “attractive cycling bridge” if Angus Council or Sustrans were the ones proposing it.

A Network Begins with One Route

No, not everyone will cycle this route. But many more might walk, scoot, wheel, or push a pram — especially when there’s safe, pleasant space to do it.

That’s what this project begins to offer.

It’s easy to mock something at the start — but everything has to begin somewhere.

That’s how networks work: you build a bit, then you connect it.

If Amsterdam or Copenhagen feels too grand a comparison, you only have to look along the coast.

The new Monifieth to Broughty Ferry route is a local, working example of what active travel can look like.

Walkers. Young ones on scooters. Runners. Cyclists. All benefiting from a space designed for people — not just traffic.

Or maybe Steve prefers to stay in the fast lane, bypassing it all on the dual carriageway.

This route might not yet sweep out to Montrose — or even into all of Arbroath’s most struggling areas — but it’s a start.

It says walking and cycling aren’t afterthoughts. It creates space for cleaner, safer movement — and, once complete, a more attractive town.

That matters. Even in Arbroath.

Michael Loudon — Without Invitation