Hayling Billy Trail ATF4 Booklet

HAYLING BILLY TRAIL

KEY INFORMATION

WHAT? Improvement of Trail surface to all-weather

WHY? To encourage use of the Trail as an alternative to traveling by car standard over the northern 1.2 km on the Island

COST? £600,000

WHEN? Planned for winter 2023 / 24

ACTIVE TRAVEL FUND ROUND 4 PROJECT UPDATE

BACKGROUND

Hampshire County Council has successfully bid for £600,000 for funding to improve the north end of the Billy Trail on Hayling. The award is from Active Travel England. The funding has to be committed for spending by 31st March 2024 – in practice this means that a contractor has to be appointed and ready to build the scheme by that date.

The Hayling Billy Trail is owned by Hampshire County Council. Their Countryside Service looks after maintenance and are the client in charge of the project. Havant Borough Council’s Civil Engineering and Landscape Team (CELT) has been awarded the commission from the County Council to design the scheme, building on their long and successful association with the route. Implementation will be by a contractor appointed by the County Council.

WHAT’S INVOLVED

The project will involve putting a new surface on the Trail. This is intended to be an asphalt surface, similar to that already used on the mainland parts of the Trail, which will make this section usable in all weather conditions.

As part of the design, we’ll also be looking at drainage improvements and waymarking, taking account, not only of the shortly-expected establishment of the King Charles III England Coast Path along part of this length, but that it already forms part of Sustrans’ National Cycle Network and is part of the Shipwrights Way long distance footpath

THE PROJECT

This 1.2km long section of the Trail between the Havant Road car park (opposite the ‘Applegreen’ garage) and North Hayling Halt car park (to the rear of the ‘Esso’ garage) was chosen as the first stage to be improved, because other work has already been carried out on it. The new ‘orange’ surface is less than 10 years old, and the southern end near the Victoria Road car park (behind Esso) is regularly used by heavy lorries for access to the Oysterbeds so is known to be sound. The funding award requires very fast design and implementation, and on other sections of the Trail design would have taken longer, and the County Council would probably have not been awarded any funding.

Once completed and built, it is hoped that this first section will act as a proof of concept for upgrading the rest of the Trail all the way down to the Station Theatre, and then onwards to the beach by way of Staunton Avenue.