A contractor is being sought to to create a 1.7km traffic-free cycleway from Green Hammerton to Thorpe Underwood.
The Hammerton Greenway, which will cost an estimated £84,600, will encourage cycling in villages close to main roads.
Green Hammerton Parish Council began work on the scheme after the 2014 Tour de France passed through the area and a planning application to change the use of land to facilitate a cycleway was submitted last year to North Yorkshire Council.
The village lies between York and Harrogate. The A59 and Boroughbridge Road limit access to the network of country roads into the vale of York.
The greenway will link with Great Ouseburn, which is part of the Way of the Roses cycle route from Morecambe to Bridlington.
North Yorkshire Council is funding the majority of the scheme from developer contributions paid by housebuilders and now the parish council is seeking bids from contractors to carry out the work. The deadline for submissions is April 30.
Work is expected to begin in autumn, after the nesting season and harvesting so overhanging branches and overgrown hedges can be cut back.
Planning documents submitted to the council in support of the application said:
“This will be a greenway for all users and will be designed to give a smooth dry surface for year-round use on foot, by cycle, and with children’s buggies or by those in wheelchairs.”
Creating the cycleway will mainly involve upgrading existing public footpaths and farm tracks to create a more even and levelled surface. The surface will be ‘durable all-weather crushed stone, with mown verges either side, giving a total width of 5m’.
Moss Hill Lane will be included in the cycleway.
The planning documents add:
“The work will require the replacement of an existing bridge with a new, cycleway bridge, the installation of potential street furniture (benches, bollards, and gates) and new/enhanced boundary treatments in the form of hedge planting and where necessary fencing.”
Jon Purday, a campaigner for the greenway who put the idea to the parish council in 2014, said:
“The Hammerton Greenway will be a safe route for families to take children on bikes, buggies and scooters, for walkers, wheelchairs and mobility vehicles, and for young people to cycle on a traffic-free track. Green Hammerton is hemmed in by busy main roads which are dangerous for young and inexperienced cyclists.
“In the past decade Green Hammerton has doubled in size and many young families have moved into the new houses. The Hammerton Greenway offers safe, accessible space for all those growing up in the village to learn to cycle and to get the benefit of living in the country.
“Queen Ethelburga’s school is just a mile away over the fields, and all the Green Hammerton children who go there, as well as teachers and others in the village who work there, will be able to cycle safely into school. That’s a much more exciting way to start the day than adding to the school car run.”
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