The Details
Unlike a lot of the other missing links we cover, Heathhall doesn’t have poor cycling connections to town; thanks to the Caledonian Cycleway it has an excellent and well-used off-road path that connects it almost to the town centre. However, the older parts of the suburb don’t have as good connections internally, making the primary school less accessible to pupils who might otherwise be able to cycle there.
Heathhall has a great deal of potential for active travel: the primary school topped the leaderboard during Beat the Street, and the suburb - combined with Locharbriggs - represents more than 10% of Dumfries’ population (Heathhall 3,225 and Locharbriggs 1,600). New houses are under construction and new housing developments are in planning. According to the last census 2.4% of the population cycled to work (slightly higher than the average for central Dumfries) and 8.1% walked. We have an opportunity here to greatly increase those numbers. When parents feel safe cycling with their children to school, it becomes easier for them to continue on their own commute by bike, for instance into town, which is a 15 minute commute. It also gives children the confidence to continue cycling to school independently once they transition to secondary school. Heathhall has an excellent traffic-free route to the Dumfries High School via the Caledonian Cycleway and Summerpark. Heathhall Primary serves pupils from further afield than Heathhall, so good connections between the school and the Caledonian Cycleway are key. Cycling conditions have to be excellent before most parents of primary school age children will contemplate it for their kids. Most of the roads within Heathhall are now 20mph, and McDiarmid Road / Hunter Avenue offer an example of ‘filtered permeability’ (meaning that cyclists and pedestrians can get through but cars and other motor vehicles can’t). As you can see in the photos below, a dropped kerb would improve accessibility, and Hunter Avenue exits at a mini roundabout opposite the school, which may discourage novice cyclists.
Astor Drive is the main east-west route and this is a 30mph road that looks built for speed. Downs Way, which connects Heathhall to Tinwald Downs Road, and is the most direct and obvious route to the Caledonian Cycleway, is a similar ‘racetrack’ of a road.
The green space and recreation ground behind the community centre joins up a number of quiet streets and is right in the heart of Heathhall. There are accesses to it from all corners, making it ideal to form the heart of a network of quiet routes. However it is unpaved and unlit so would be uninviting as a route in winter. At least one of the entrances is also blocked by a chicane barrier that would block access to a wheelchair or adaptive bike of any kind, including a trailer or cargo bike for transporting children and shopping.
The primary school is on a 20mph road with traffic-calming measures, but these are in the form of ‘speed cushions’ which make it hard to cycle alongside traffic, especially for young children as the humps put drivers into conflict with cyclists vying for space. There’s also a mini-roundabout to negotiate and the railings on the street around the school entrance suggest that traffic is considered a hazard. It’s likely that most children cycling here will do so on the pavement.
Some relatively small interventions could unlock the potential for active travel that Beat the Street demonstrated and enhance active travel in the community and onwards to the industrial estate, the off-road leisure routes to the south, secondary schools and Dumfries town centre. New proposals for housing at Catherinefield Farm will need connections to the Caledonian Cycleway to the west (via a signalised crossing of the A701) as well as paths connecting the new houses south to the community of Heathhall. These should be in place before the first occupants move in, as moving house is a key moment for people to form a new habit, such as cycling to work or school. Let’s not build any new missing links as new developments are planned!
