Smooth progress for cycle link

People walking and cycling between two growing Somerset towns can now enjoy a much smoother journey after a key local cycle route was given a £140,000 facelift.

- Daniel Mumby

The Frome’s Missing Links project aims to deliver a new multi-user path from Welshmill Lane, just north of the town centre, to the Colliers Way cycle path in Great Elm, providing an unbroken route between Frome and Radstock.

Phase two of the project, which runs from the Colliers Way terminus to Elliots Lane in Hapsford, was partially implemented in December 2018 but the surface is currently too “loose and uneven” for horses, bicycles, scooters or wheelchairs.

Following a successful crowdfunding campaign in the autumn of 2024, this section has now been fully resurfaced in smooth Tarmac, providing an easier connection to route 24 of the National Cycle Network (NCN).

The resurfaced section was officially reopened to the public at a well-attended ceremony at the Elliots Lane end on Saturday morning (April 26), which included appearances by the Mayors of Frome and Radstock.

Frome’s Missing Links chairman Richard Ackroyd said: “We started this stretch back in 2015.

“We had about 120-odd people who came out for that first weekend, where we cleared head-high brambles, twigs, branches, trees, you name it. That carried on for several years, clearing all the old railway line and sleepers along with land ownership deals and battles, with Network Rail helping out near the end.”

The phase two section runs for around 1.3 kilometres (just under one mile), with pedestrians and cyclists being able to join westbound from either Buckland Road in Great Elm or from the Colliers Way active travel route.

This latter entrance takes pedestrians over the former Buckland railway bridge, with the path running alongside the remaining single-track freight line all the way to Elliots Lane.