COUNCILLORS have punctured a hole through possible plans to install a cycle track around part of the Green Corridor project site in Wellington.

It was four years ago when the former Somerset West and Taunton Council bought the 62.5-acres of land — known as the Green Corridor covering an area stretching from Tonedale to Hilly Head and includes The Basins nature reserve — which it then signed over to Wellington Town Council on a 150-year lease.

The town council’s Green Corridor Advisory Board — made up of local interested community groups — met on June 6 where a proposal for a Wheeled Sports Park to be included in the project was put forward by a group of enthusiasts as part of the Wellington and District Sports Federation.

Olly Edmonson-Law developed proposals to improve facilities for enthusiasts of cycling, skate boards, long boards, roller skates and inline skates, scooter adapted bikes and radio-controlled cars, as well as for wheelchair-user sports.

The plans involve modernising the existing skate park, build two pump tracks on 12 Acre Field and relocate long-established mud jumps from their current location to alongside the planned pump track.

But the most contentious idea was to tarmac a long cycle path up to eight metres wide which would run round 12 Acre Field, The Down and part of Mutton Field.

And that proposal was met with negativity from the town council’s environment committee when it met on June 18.

Cllr Janet Lloyd said: “I’m dead against this.”

Cllr Sean Pringle-Kosikowsky said the Green Corridor project was to preserve the green space for future generations to enjoy.

“But surely that means doing things which would have the least amount of impact on the environment so putting down a tarmac cycle path is out of the question,” he said.

Cllr John Thorne, a non-member of the council’s environment committee, said: “I was appalled when I read the report.

“Having a cycle path is a ridiculous idea. You can’t take over 60 acres of the Basins land to preserve and then put loads of tarmac around it!”

The report listed a number of “wheeled sports” but Cllr Thorne quipped he was surprised he did not see wheelbarrow racing mentioned as that would be more in-keeping with the environmental ethos of the project.

But he added: “We do need to look at the facilities we have for people who enjoy wheeled sports. I think we have a playing pitch strategy we’re trying to develop, so perhaps we could amend that to look at play facilities?”

The town council’s chief executive, Dave Farrow, reminded councillors that they were, at this stage, just being asked for their views.

“We’re not having to say ‘yes’ to anything at the moment, but just letting the group know our thoughts and that it could go away and come back with more details,” said Mr Farrow.

Councillors agreed to ask the wheeled sports group for more details about its overall strategy, but say that they would not be able to support a cycle track.