CYCLISTS are getting heckled by people in the city centre who don’t realise the pedestrian-only part of the High Street is also a national cycle route.

Susan Hobkirk, 50, who lives just off Fisherton Street, regularly cycles along the route but says she is often shouted at, despite signposts indicating bicycles are allowed.

“I am so fed up with it because it is clearly marked as part of the cycle route,” she said. “Some people are quite aggressive.

“Others quite deliberately walk in front of you as you cycle along, and if you ring your bell, you get abuse about it being a pavement and ‘why don’t you get off and walk?’.

Mrs Hobkirk is calling on Wiltshire Council to put in more obvious markings to make sure people are aware she and other cyclists are not breaking any rules when they use the route.

“If they were to colour part of the pedestrian area and put a cycle sign in it, then at least when people walk across they would realise we are actually quite entitled to cycle there.”

When Mrs Hobkirk said when she does stop and point on the fact it is a valid cycle route, she receives more abuse.

“Of course, like most people who challenge you and they are in the wrong, they get even ruder,” she said. “I will drop down in shock one day if someone says ‘I am terribly sorry, I didn’t realise’ – but they won’t.

“If there were something visible I could point at, it would be better.”

A spokesman for Wiltshire Council said: “It is a shared space but it is definitely a cycle route and people are allowed to cycle along there.

“We will see what we can do to make that clear. We would suggest anyone who has issues to contact the council.”