PLANS to build a velo park in Monmouthshire which promises to be of “national importance” for the growth of cycling and wheeled sport have been approved by councillors.
Owen Davies Consulting has led the feasibility, design, planning and project management on behalf of Monmouthshire CC and Welsh Cycling. The development of this unique sporting, leisure and education facility will include a closed road circuit with facilities for road, cyclocross and entry-level mountain biking.
In 2020 the council was awarded a grant from the Welsh Government, via Sport Wales, to develop a project. Facilities will be suitable for leisure, coaching, training and competitive cycling, and for all forms of wheeled sports.
The closed road circuit will be six metres wide and one kilometre in length, on a unique undulating course with street lighting covering part of the circuit to allow for its use during the evening.
The project has been complex to develop, because of the site’s topography, biodiversity and ecology, with a number of protected species identified on or immediately adjacent to the site.
At a planning committee meeting on Tuesday, Councillors backed the application. The following day the Council’s Cabinet backed the scheme with over £490k to fund the construction of the first phase of the multi-million pound Abergavenny velo park.
We blogged about the velo park design in 2020 https://owendaviesconsulting.co.uk/velo-park-enhancing-monmouthshires-national-international-reputation-cycle-sport-tourism/
The Abergavenny velo park project has been a ‘sweetspot’ project for our team where we were able to combine Owen’s lifetime experience of racing cycling and experience as a British Cycling qualified coach with our professional masterplanning and development skills to plan, design and enable this nationally significant scheme.
