Peaks & Puddles 🚲🏳️‍🌈

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Peak District cycling. Cycle routes, active travel news & local exploring in the Peak edges of Derbyshire, Cheshire & Greater Manchester, where Stockport meets the High Peak • Anthony 👋 peaksandpuddles.com

Visual guide to responding to Greater Manchester Transport Delivery Plan consultation.
Google AI summary: A Disley High Lane bypass, though aimed at reducing local congestion and pollution, would likely have significant negative habitat impacts, primarily through habitat loss (Green Belt, countryside), habitat fragmentation (splitting ecosystems), increased noise and light pollution disrupting wildlife, and potential negative effects on local biodiversity, air quality, and green spaces within the rural landscape surrounding High Lane and Disley, conflicting with efforts to protect the area's natural character. Sources: Stockport Council
Printed tea towels for Macclesfield, Prestbury, Abersoch, Altrincham, Alderley Edge…
A steep, narrow, muddy slope on a right of way with fallen and twisting tree branches across its path. Bicycle handlebars show the narrow width and difficulty of access as a diversion route.
Location of a former stile on canal bridge 23 beside a field gate. The stile is removed and new stone to make good the surface. A bicycle is propped where it would’ve had to be lifted over.
Swing bridge at Disley with existing sign board; it would be easy to attach a poster “canal closed x km ahead here” but CRT don’t seem to understand.
Photo of canal closure point this week with waterway drained and a mass of machinery and equipment.
Grey metal barriers surround both a small town Christmas tree and two Sheffield cycle stands with high street shops in the background.
Tight rays of golden sunlight burst through cloud in a wide green valley.
A gushing stream in a high brook.
Screenshot of consultation showing boxes to fill under “Delivery Plan” “Map 3” or email transport2050@tfgm.com
Map of road schemes with “Peak District National Park” location sticker added.
Map overlay of projected road routes.
Photo of green valley below a canal with Kinder Scout visible in distance. Caption titled “Huge new roadbuilding here?”
Map overlay of A6-M60 link road and A6 High Lane and Disley bypass.
Long list of potential interventions from the linked document. All but three are crossed in red as undelivered.
Text of FOI to Cheshire East: Your request is as follows: The Greater Manchester Transport Delivery Plan 2027-2037 Consultation Draft resurrects proposal of an A6 High Lane and Disley bypass, on 'Map 3: explore and develop', and described as follows on page 71: 'A bypass of the settlements of High Lane and Disley, promoted by Cheshire East Council.' The proposal for this major new road is noted as being 'promoted by Cheshire East Council', yet there is no public record of this. 1) Please provide a copy of all written representations made by Cheshire East Council to Transport for Greater Manchester related to the inclusion of this proposal in the draft transport delivery plan. 2) Please provide a copy of all written representations made by Cheshire East Council to Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council related to the inclusion of this proposal in the draft transport delivery plan. I confirm that Cheshire East Council holds the information you have requested. However, I am unable to provide you with that information as I consider that the following exceptions apply to it. We consider that Regulation 6(1)(b) applies to the information requested because the information requested is already publicly available and easily accessible. Cheshire East Council has not formally sought to request a review or provision of a bypass of Disley. The last time this issue was raised was in the SEMMMS refresh several years ago - and this was never adopted by the Council (it was a consultation proposal) - as Stockport Council moved away from adopting the refresh due to their need to include an assessment of their (as then) Local Plan developments. The Council will be responding to the Manchester Transport consultation.
A 1909 build stone library building on a steep town road with hills distant.
Darkness over rolling hills with higher distant peaks and ancient woodland in the foreground.
A 200 year old canal sits high above an entirely rural valley, a narrowboat is moored and to the off side a green field climbs with sheep. (No geese today?)
An old stone bridge on a minor road crossing a surging river. The background is large rural green hills.
Map showing preferred routes of Disley and High Lane Bypass, dated 1994.
Bare Google Map satellite of High Lane, Disley, New Mills area.
A wide and well surfaced 3 metre-plus-width trail alongside a long reservoir in the Peak District.
A cycle trail in a cutting on a former railway track. The path is very wet and muddy with full ponds and ditches on either side.
A locked metal farm gate on a public right of way. Beside it, a narrow gap is made into a squeeze by two posts placed to intentionally frustrate access.
A person attempting to carry/push a bike up a steep slope on the diversion path provided by Stockport council, trying to find footing between slippy tree roots and uneven rocks.
A very high and slippy stile is the only access onto the footpath diversion at Bridge 23. Nothing has been done to improve its accessibility in advance of what will be much greater foot traffic. Council: Cheshire East
A solid metal fence erected across a towpath.
The front light of a bike illuminates a woodland track covered in autumn leaves at dusk.
Entrance gate with National Trust ‘Welcome to Lyme’ signage attached showing opening hours 8.30am to 5pm.
A line spray painted across a canal towpath where a solid metal fence was about to be installed into the ground, completely blocking the route.
Photo thanks to Katy. Notice reads: ADVANCED WARNING FOR SURFACING ON THE MIDDLEWOOD WAY PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THE SECTION OF PATH FROM HOLEHOUSE LANE, WHITELEY GREEN, BRIDGE 8 TO BRIDGE 7, BOLLINGTON WILL BE CLOSED TO CARRY OUT THESE WORKS FROM MONDAY 17TH TO WEDNESDAY 26th NOVEMBER
A metal Sheffield stand fixed in the ground against gravestones in a churchyard, with village buildings in the background.
A track descends through a wooded brook beside a stream. Leaves of the trees are turning to vivid yellow and orange. (Hase Bank Wood, Lyme)
Steep lane with about 5,000 asphalt pothole patches.
Screenshot from Open Cycle Map showing Whaley Bridge Junction.
The bench on Middlewood Way near Higher Doles Farm, looking out over green farmland owned largely by the Adlington Hall Estate, recently sold to developer Belport. The landscape is a wide, clear green break between the sprawl of Manchester and Cheshire towns like Macclesfield.
The frontage of Lyme Hall lit by sun with dark skies above.
The dashed centre line of a road disappears over the crest of a hill. In the distance, another road snaked up a steep green hillside to a sharp gritstone outcrop, Windgather Rocks.
Minutes on access for all works by the National Parks, stating “at Fernilee Reservoir, new gates are being installed for a new Miles without Stiles route and access by cyclists and horse riders.”
The Fernilee old railway trail, mostly about 3 metres wide: considerably wider than the actual High Peak Trail the old railway route becomes further into the Peak!
New wide 1.5m bridleway gate on access to 3m+ wide old railway trail along reservoir. A new “no cycling” sign has appeared beside.
A reservoir between rolling moorland with scant remaining water and remains of old stone walls visible.
A hilltop hunting lodge at Lyme on the edge of the Peak covered in scaffolding for restoration work.
Giant, like absurdly huge, motorway sized ‘30’ speed limit sign on a small rural lane.
Bridge with complete but crumbling red brick parapet. Wooden steps and bridge provide a foot diversion
A gravel frame bicycle propped against a stone-mounted interpretation board on the roadside, above a valley which extends in the distance between green hills to the dark moorland plateau of Kinder.
A heavy wooden bridle gate where the bridleway cycle trail meets a minor road. The gate opens only one way and does not have an easy latch.
A rough track with grass in the middle climbs around the brow of a hill to a distant, lower horizon. A tall tree towers above with big clouds behind.
Before: Access point from a cycle trail to a road has locked “accessible” kissing gate with uneven grassy base and tiny turning circle. Beside it, a very narrow squeeze point between two wooden posts, restricting any kind of trailer or non-standard cycle.
Before: narrow blind bridge under a 200 year old canal is one way only for vehicles with footways barely existing. A car takes up the full width. Cycles have no way into the town from this direction (and almost no other ‘good’ routes).
Looking down a steep lime-green clough littered with vast gritstone boulders to a sparse moorland river and seemingly endless moors beyond. The sky is blue with dancing clouds.
Meadowsweet grows beside a canal in sun. A gravel path leads to a bridge beside an old stone cottage.
Landscape photos from a cycle route
Invasive Himalayan balsam plant growing beside a cycle trail
Cycling under a towering stone road viaduct.