As the Farnham Infrastructure Programme (FIP) enters the last six months of its construction work, I note the plans to enhance East Street as part of the new Woolmead development.

The proposals by George and Yolande Hesse, and backed by The Farnham Society, is to pedestrianise East Street and move westbound car traffic onto the Woolmead Road, making it two-way instead of one.

But it is very important to think about what is missing from their proposal. They are not proposing any cycle tracks along the pedestrianised East Street.

Sadly this is nothing new. Some £17million has been spent on the revamped town centre, with not a single metre of cycle track being built.

I see bikes would be forced to use Woolmead Road on the East Street pedestrianisation plans, too.

As this is a curved road there would be few chances for cars to overtake cyclists and so cars would be waiting behind the bikes from the end of Dogflud Way right through to the Royal Deer junction at South Street.

Furthermore, to reduce accidents cyclists would need to adopt the Primary Position as recommended in the Highway Code and shown in the attached photo. This is done to avoid close passes and dangerous/desperate overtaking in places where it is not safe for cars to overtake.

Wouldn't it be better to have a clearly marked cycle track running straight along East Street and so encouraging cycles to not use the Woolmead Road?

I have often wondered why more car drivers are not requesting cycle tracks to allow bikes to stay off the roads across the town centre. It would seem to me that this would make car drivers happier and certainly cyclists happier.

With 12 new housing estates coming to Farnham there will be a much larger number of people needing to move around the town. With the revised FIP road layout now complete, car queues in the town centre are as long as they have ever been and so a new transport network is needed.

I have just come back from trips to Bath, Bristol and the Netherlands and in all cases have been surprised at how few car traffic jams there were in town centres and how many people were using bikes to get around.

The change was particularly striking in the centre of Bath and Bristol which used to have huge traffic problems. Neither of these cities have a congestion zone although they have implemented ULEZ zones to keep pre-2016 vehicles away.

At this point people are probably thinking that Farnham is a hilly town and it wouldn't work here, but so are Bristol and Bath.

Ebikes make hills disappear but not petrol, so it would also help with the cost-of-living crisis, and you can buy a good e-bike for less than £1500 or £90/month with a cycle scheme.

I really believe that the Woolmead is a great opportunity to build another short cycle track and hope that one day we will have a full network.