Tamworth to Nuneaton on a bike

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Shawn and I had a very pleasant afternoon out recently in the company of Ed Healey (Sustrans area manager for West Midlands) and Katie AT (Sustrans Volunteer Coordinator south). We were a little off patch but were doing a "reccie" on a new planned NCN route between Tamworth and Nuneaton. The proposed route here was put together by Ed and Patrick Davis (retired Sustrans Area manager for East Midlands).

My first time to Tamworth on a bike and I have to say I was impressed. Plenty of off road cycle paths provided an easy route out of town. (maps here if you are interested). Nuneaton was a very different story - the cycling provision here is very poor and we struggled to find an acceptable route from Hartshill to our intended destination at Nuneaton Station. Suggestions from anybody who knows Nuneaton well would be very welcome.

The only other real problem area was around Whateley south of Tamworth. Here a promising link turned out to be a footpath rather than a bridleway and we needed to cycle for a stretch along Trinity Lane which was none too pleasant with lots of heavy traffic. We want to look at another route (to the West) out of Tamworth which should avoid this bit of road.

The meat of the route was very pleasant utilising parts of the North Warwickshire Cycleway and passing by Hartshill Hayes Country Park

So a bit more exploration needed, but overall this looks promising. Ed sees that this could be Ranger signed. The Nuneaton group has a new Group Coordinator (john Gabriel) so this could be a project that they would pick up, however I'm sure they would welcome help from us. I plan to get in touch with John shortly.