New protected cycleway near Houghton Cut, replacing an earlier one.
The Houghton Cut was a narrow gap through a rocky defile until the start of the 20th Century, shows a “then and now” video from Houghton Heritage Society.
“This Sunderland Echo photograph shows the dual carriageway and cycle tracks,” stated the newspaper on 8 July 1938, adding that the widened road through the Houghton Cut would reopen in September that year.
The road has been rewidened several times since and the Houghton Cut is now more of flattened scar than a cut. It is far wider than in the 1930s, with later widenings wholly removing the period cycle tracks and footways.
However, in 2023, DfT/Sunderland City Council resurrected the obliterated cycle tracks with a “two-way cycle lane [to] run from East Rainton, adjacent to the City of Sunderland Boundary eastbound on the A690 through Houghton Cut and finishing at A19 Interchange.” Naturally, local and national media carried scare stories on the “dangerous” cycleway built in the “wrong” place. Newspapers interviewed locals who claimed roadspace had been taken away from motorists to build the cycleway; few locals will remember the narrower iteration of the road and its adjacent cycle track.
