The Details

Holywood is less than 3.5 miles from the centre of Dumfries, the same distance as Locharbriggs which has the excellent Caledonian Cycleway link into town. It hosts a primary school that serves children from the village and the neighbouring villages. New developments are being built between the A76 and Irongray Road and the area is getting busier.

Acting now to close the one gap in the cycle network to Holywood should be a quick win as most of the infrastructure is already in place. At the moment a shared-use path (for pedestrians and cyclists) goes from Newbridge to Lochside and from Lochside cyclists have routes to amenities such as the North West Community Campus, Cuckoo Bridge retail park, The Bridge and onwards to the town centre.

However, between Newbridge and Holywood, the footway is for pedestrians only. There is room for this footway to be moved away from the very fast trunk road and widened so it could be formally adopted as a shared-use path for the half a mile to Holywood, creating a traffic-free, direct route to and from the town.

There are a number of access roads on to the A76 where using the dropped kerb involves turning into the secondary road. Cyclists and pedestrians could be given priority at these junctions and the dropped kerbs removed in favour of raised table crossings (see photo below). This has the added advantage of calming traffic joining the A76.

Connecting to Ellisland

Ellisland farm, where Robert Burns lived, and now a museum, is a short ride (3 miles) from Holywood through lovely countryside on a quiet road. Eventually the route has to rejoin the A76 for the final half mile to the turn off for Ellisland. This road has fast traffic and puts off most cyclists. There is no pedestrian path.

A coordinated approach to the various Burns sites in the area is on the agenda of bodies like the Burns Quarter and the South of Scotland Destination Alliance. A shared-use path alongside the A76 from where the back road from Holywood comes out, all the way to the track to Ellisland would add to any strategy to ensure that Burns is a central part of the region’s tourism strategy.

Or following in the footsteps of Burns, maybe there’s a cross-country route that could be explored? A riverside route linking to Friars Carse would add even more scope for leisure and tourism rides.