Today there’s a shared use path both sides of the road but little evidence remains of the period cycle tracks and footways through the Treforest Trading Estate. The cycle track was planned in 1937 and opened in 1939.
“Glamorgan County Council has begun the construction of a new road from Nantgarw past the South Wales Trading Estate to a point near Upper Boat,” reported the Western Mail in 1937.
“This road, the first of its kind in the county, will be 80ft. wide and will consist of a dual carriageway, cycle tracks, and paths for pedestrians,” added the paper.
The Treforest Trading Estate was one of several such estates planned as a reaction to growing unemployment during the Depression of the early 1930s. The areas targeted by the “special areas” Act of 1934 included Tyneside and Scotland’s central belt. The Team Valley estate on Tyneside also had a period cycle track.
Glamorgan County Council’s county surveyor Charles Pole confirmed the road for the Treforest Trading Estate was finished by January 1939.
“Between Nantgarw and Upper Boat, the Cardiff-Pontypridd county road, Route A.470 — through the Treforest Trading Estate — Realigning and widening from an average width of 30ft. to a width 80ft., including the provision of two footpaths 6ft. wide. Dual carriageways and cycle tracks have been provided along a considerable length of the improvement,” Pole reported.
