Funding to be spent on walking and cycling in Saffron Walden

The funds from housing developers were provided to Essex Highways in 2017, but have remained unspent.

Now, eight years later, Essex County Council is proposing to use them following pressure from Residents for Uttlesford (R4U).

The money must be spent on projects which will make it easier for residents to walk or cycle rather than driving.

Otherwise, it will be returned to the developers by August 2027, resulting in a loss for the town.

R4U councillors have been lobbying Essex Highways for the past eight years to see the money spent.

Councillor Chloe Fiddy (Image: Residents for Uttlesford)

District councillor Chloe Fiddy said: “Nearly 10 years ago we surveyed local residents and identified the key walking-to-school routes where safer crossing points on the main roads would make a real difference to children’s safety.”

In late 2025, councillor Fiddy and Essex county councillor Paul Gadd successfully convinced Essex Highways to spend the money on transport improvements before the time runs out.

County councillor Paul Gadd added: “I’ve been trying to get Essex Highways to spend this money ever since I was elected to ECC five years ago, and indeed long before that.

Councillor Paul Gadd (Image: Residents for Uttlesford)

“Essex Highways is almost entirely focused on how they can get more cars onto our roads.

“They’ve been completely uninterested in making it safer and easier for local residents to walk and cycle, which would reduce traffic congestion, or to spend this money.

“Over the last five years, I’ve put forward to Essex Highways the schemes that we had identified as being most needed, including a path along the front of the County High School, and safer crossing points on Ashdon Road, Thaxted Road, Borough Lane and outside Katherine Semar.

“All of these were rejected by Essex Highways, but they made no alternative suggestion as to how they would spend the money.

"We hope that in the next few months they will produce design studies and then begin to implement various projects.

"It would be criminal if over half a million pounds were to be handed back to the developer."