Artist and cyclist, Steve Kinsella, known for his “I’m Out for Coffee” books of local cycle rides and cafés across the Chew Valley, has now painted a striking picture about North Somerset Council’s “Pier to Pier” cycling route.

Steve explained: “The contemporary artist Grayson Perry was my inspiration for this painting about a local issue. At an exhibition in Edinburgh I was spellbound by Perry’s large imaginative tapestries depicting British social and political issues. Truly amazing. My painting entitled “Imagining the opening of a cycling link across the River Yeo at Kingston Seymour after forty years” is about a small local transport issue that has been burning for a very long time - the hope of many people to be able to cycle (or walk or ride) the half-mile between existing roads on the route of old Weston Clevedon and Portishead railway, which closed in 1940. Thus saving up to seven miles of cycling mostly main roads.”

“This link is the hope of many people - some of whom have been waiting for it for 40 years or more. In the nineties the route existed in North Somerset’s local transport plan. It came to a head in 2012 when the Council responded to campaigners by announcing that the route would be built. After that it was repeatedly promised – usually for “next year”. Successive announcements of its imminent opening became treated with well-founded scepticism. In 2023 the Council gave successively four promises – for Spring, Summer, Summer again and Autumn, calling it the “Pier to Pier Route”, but it is still not open, with the latest stated intention being a Spring opening again.”

Steve Kinsella’s tongue-in-cheek painting shows two cyclists passing through Kingston Seymour. The piers of Clevedon and Weston are on the horizon. In the picture the joy of the cyclists contrasts the expressions of local people, to whom the bicycle is apparently an alien monstrosity! The two riders are on their way to pass through the “Bog of Hopes and Promises” before reaching a sinking Town Hall at Weston-super-Mare.

The picture (above) is 120cm wide by 53cm high.