CHRIS TITLEY reports on claims that cycling is not always better for the environment.

FOUR wheels bad, two wheels good, two legs better. That's the thrust of City of York Council's transport policy, which aims to promote walking and cycling at the expense of the car. Environmentally, it is a laudable aim. Walking is the most self-sufficient transport possible. And cycling is also a very efficient way to commute.

Cycles are quieter than cars, take up less road space, cause less pollution and fewer accidents. So you would expect those who care about the city's environment to be delighted by the creation of the York Millennium Pedestrian and Cycle Route.

And they are. Up to a point.

That point is at the bottom of Kingsway West. Or in the middle of Albemarle Road, depending on which direction you are heading.

Those are the start and finishing posts in the latest link of the Millennium Pedestrian and Cycle Route. The reason conservationists are deeply concerned is because the 2.5 metre-wide path goes across the two ancient commons of York, Hob Moor and Knavesmire.

The Millennium route is designed by Sustrans, the sustainable transport charity, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and supported by City of York Council.

The council says that this latest link "will provide a safe route to the Millennium Bridge for people from a wide area of the city and will also contribute to the council's objective of creating safe routes to schools". It offers direct connections to Our Lady's, Hob Moor and Millthorpe Schools and passes close to five others.

Cutting back on school-run congestion and encouraging kids onto their bikes are two more reasons to commend the scheme. Many residents certainly think so: the idea got the thumbs up in a council consultation in southern wards of York (although opponents say the questionnaire was biased).

Tomorrow's meeting of the city council planning committee is being recommended to refer the scheme to the Government with the advice "that the council is minded to approve the application", subject to conditions.

So what's the problem?

There are two major objections: that the route will damage an important historical site on Knavesmire, the York Tyburn; and that it will disrupt the wildlife and ancient landscape of Hob Moor.

The Tyburn, on the Tadcaster Road side of Knavesmire, was where York's gallows were situated from 1379 until 1812. Many are concerned at the proposed route's treatment of this site, including York's Conservation Area Advisory Panel.

Its submission stated: "To ramp up the ground on two sides of the York Tyburn will be to destroy its identity so that it is simply buried beneath a mound in the cycle track."

Darrell Buttery, acting chairman of the York Civic Trust, agrees.

"The Civic Trust is all for cyclists and cycle routes. But I am not for cycle routes at any price. This is what we are objecting to.

"It's a highly important site historically. One could almost say a sacred site because of the deaths of Catholic martyrs over the centuries.

"It is appalling vandalism to treat a site of that historical and religious importance as though it were of no importance at all."

Religious services are held at least annually at the York Tyburn. Leaders of the Catholic Church in York say they have not been consulted about the proposal. Mr Buttery wants to make more of the site, now barely more than a couple of park benches and an engraved stone.

He is to press for the Civic Trust "to initiate and pay for a survey to see what could be done - how that very important site in York could be much better preserved and presented as befits its importance to York's history and the history of the country."

This is not the only reservation about the cycle track on Knavesmire. Not only would it look out of place, says the conservation panel, but it would be incompatible with grazing livestock.

Crossing Tadcaster Road and the railway line, the cycle route arrives at Hob Moor. This 70-acre site has been designated a site for nature conservation. One of its most important roles is as a habitat for ground-nesting birds, including the increasingly-rare skylarks and meadow pipits.

The landscape also contains a blueprint of the past, in the form of the "ridge and furrow" ploughing by medieval farmers, and horse-drawn ploughing from the Napoleonic era.

With these concerns in mind, an independent ecology report was commissioned.

As a result, "the proposed path alignment was moved away from important wildlife areas", the council states. And it has "been designed to assimilate with the ridge and furrow".

This has not mollified the Friends Of Hob Moor. The group is happy for people to cycle across the area, as they have for decades. But to urbanise it with a cycleway would be to damage its "spirit of place". They have put forward an alternative cycle route along nearby roads.

In their submission to the council, the Friends say trees and the ridge and furrow would be damaged, and flooding increased. Attempts to stop motorcyclists gaining access to the route are inadequate.

They are unconvinced that the skylark and meadow pipit would thrive in the busier conditions.

"Two million users a year are forecast for the Millennium Bridge," says Friends' chairman Elizabeth Smith. "If only a quarter of those use the Hob Moor section, that's unacceptable disturbance.

"It's wholly inappropriate from the point of view of the archaeology of this site, and it would create a great deal of extra disturbance to the wildlife.

"Hob Moor is very, very special. To damage this area, to increase disturbance when we have got skylarks and meadow pipits, would be a recipe for disaster.

"We need to respect the environment and our landscape, and conserve bio-diversity for ourselves and for future generations."

The Yorkshire Wildlife Trust has also objected.

Conservation manager Stephen Warburton wrote to the council in the summer to state that the main threat to the skylark - which has suffered a 60 per cent decline in Britain - is loss of habitation and nest destruction. "Development on Hob Moor will have this exact result," he wrote.

The city council recognises that the route passes through sensitive areas. Members of the planning committee paid a site visit to both Hob Moor and Knavesmire yesterday.

Only tomorrow's meeting will tell if they were convinced that two wheels are not always good for the environment.

Updated: 10:45 Wednesday, October 24, 2001