Slow Ways aims to map the best ways to walk from place to place across the UK. Their Stoke to Newcastle-under-Lyme suggestions are awful and don’t inspire any confidence. One would have you trudging alongside traffic and buses all the way on the Hartshill Road. The other is a strange steep dog’s leg to get through to… the Hartshill Road again.

I’ve marked in blue the actual good walker’s route from Stoke Station to the Ironmarket, alongside their two suggestions (purple and green). Almost no main roads required for my route, only one steep short climb, and you also avoid landing up in the grotty end of Newcastle-under-Lyme town centre…

Admittedly in weather like this there will be just a few patches of mud to negotiate on one path, and in extremely wet weather the route would best be varied by going via Lock 38. But better that, than breathing traffic fumes all the way through Hartshill and being puddle-splashed by passing cars and buses.

Not suitable for cyclists, who might do better to continue on the canal near Stoke Station (rather than forking off along the old Market Drayton Line) past Hanley Cemetery, then cut through Lock 38 and thus get onto the dedicated traffic-separated bike lane on the Shelton New Road. The latter road has recently had quite a bit of taxpayer cash spent on making it better for cyclists.