Chisholm Trail Background

The Chisholm Trail (CT) is a strategic, transport project that will provide a largely off-road foot and cycle link between the Cambridge Rail Station and the new North Cambridge Station crossing the river at the location of the proposed Abbey-Chesterton Bridge adjacent to Ditton Meadows. The route will provide off-road links to key business, residential and commercial areas allowing people to travel easily across city without the use of their cars.

The key benefit of the route is that it would provide direct, quicker and safer cycle and walking access for residents travelling within the City, north-south, or vice-versa. The proposed Trail will link into a network of existing cycle ways and create a high quality route from Addenbrookes Hospital in the south of Cambridge to St Ives in the north-west of Cambridgeshire, using the Guided Busway.

The Trail will be built in phases and is expected to be completed over a period of three to five years. It is possible that we will be working on some phases consecutively. Some stretches of the Trail will be quicker to implement than others.

The Chisholm Trail forms a key backbone route for cyclists and pedestrians from one end of the city to the other. The route will link to each end of the Busway at the current rail stations, providing a largely off-road route from St Ives to Trumpington.

Through the Trumpington Busway, the Chisholm Trail also connects to the proposed Cambridge South rail station, and the Cambridge South East Transport project, which will provide an off-road cycle route from the Cambridge Biomedical campus/Addenbrookes, out to the A11 and Granta Park/Abington, and on to Linton.

Ongoing design work on the Greenways projects, Cambridge Eastern Access, and Waterbeach to Cambridge all take the Chisholm Trail into account

This route has been chosen because it is the quickest, most practical and direct means to get from Cambridge Station to the Cambridge North Station whilst keeping users away from busy traffic. The Trail follows the railway line where there is space available and links a number of green areas together. Some of the rail corridor is unavailable due to new developments and operational rail infrastructure.

The use of an underpass will avoid an increase in the use of the existing toucan crossing, which would further delay road users on this key bus route. Should an underpass go ahead, the toucan crossing will remain in order to serve existing users.

An underpass will provide access to the Leper Chapel and links to the green spaces. We will look to make the underpass attractive to reflect those materials used in the Leper Chapel. It will be lit and designed to be as sympathetic as possible to the historic surroundings.

The Green Dragon Bridge is not part of the proposed route of the Chisholm Trail. To cross the river at this point would require about 1 mile of extra travel, which is particularly disadvantageous for pedestrians. The Trail needs to be direct and convenient in order to encourage modal shift from motor vehicles to means of sustainable travel and thus reduce congestion.

The width of the cycleway will vary along the route as space allows and in order to take into account the surrounding area. 

The route will be lit where this is considered necessary. We are consulting as to whether lighting is appropriate at the Stourbridge Common/Ditton Meadows area. (Coldham's Common is currently lit.) Lighting is likely to be one of the key issues raised and debated in the consultation. Solar studs may be appropriate in some locations.

Sight lines and headroom improvements are being considered for the underpass on Coldham's Common. 

We’ve been working alongside Cambridge City Council’s Tree Officer, and all works are being carried out with their knowledge and agreement.

We have employed a qualified and highly experienced Ecological Clerk of Works to oversee every aspect of the scheme and to stop works in the event that birds are nesting or protected species are found.

All trees have been assessed for bats by experts and surveyed at height using a cherry picker aerial access platform.

Bat and owl boxes will be installed in suitable trees as part of our mitigation work and commitment to longer term environmental improvements.

We are currently carrying out enabling works to prepare for the building of the Chisholm Trail, which requires the removal of some trees and shrubbery. The trees that were removed are not the subject of any tree preservation orders.

All work has been carefully planned to be as conservative to trees as possible. Many of the large trees were in a dangerous condition and posed a severe threat to those in nearby premises.

Much of the apparent damage to the trees has been caused by grazing livestock ‘ring barking’ trees over years. This has allowed irreversible decay to set in.

Every effort has been made to spare healthy trees through the construction works:

• The Chisholm Trail will be constructed using ‘no-dig’ methods where necessary between Newmarket Road and Ditton Meadows. This method is designed to have negligible impact on the root zone of existing and newly planted trees.
• Cambridge City Council’s Tree Officer led a walk through survey of the scheme near the Leper Chapel to identify any additional trees that could be spared by the judicious use of pollarding. This will allow some additional larger specimen trees to live on for years whilst the new tree planting establishes itself.
• Whilst works have been underway, there has been extensive use of root protection matting to avoid damage by vehicles to the root zone of remaining trees.

The enabling work are conducted with the full permission and consent of the landowners, with the agreement of Planning Officers and in accordance with the planning approval. All trees have been assessed and inspected as part of the submission that was taken through the planning process.

Vegetation clearance work has been undertaken in a number of stages because of the different landowners involved. For instance, work on the railway requires special consent and working practices to be agreed and observed throughout.