Melton Road, Leicester, has a long history: it is built on the same alignment as the Roman Fosse Way and, in the 18th Century, it was improved as part of the Melton Mowbray turnpike. In the 1930s it was widened and straightened.
An announcement that cycle tracks would be added to a dual carriageway on Melton Road was made in 1936. “Another scheme that is be to carried out is the widening of Melton-road from the tram terminus to the city boundary,” reported the Nottingham Journal in that year, adding that the road “will include a special track for cyclists — the first in the Midlands.”
“The Surveyor’s Department of Leicestershire County Council,” reported the Leicester Evening Mail in 1937, “is about to begin a survey of the land and the preparation of plans for the scheme.”
The newspaper added: “It was considered by the parish council that the construction of the road was an urgent matter.”
Period photograph showing measurements on Leicester’s Melton Road.
The cycle tracks were therefore installed after 1937 and probably by 1939.
In 2022, using the findings of this study and Department for Transport-funded design work, Leicester City Council was awarded £2.2 million to refurbish the 1930s cycle track beside Melton Road as well as upgrade another, non-period scheme.
