On Wednesday night, residents from Westminster Abbey Road ward gathered at Old Marylebone Town Hall to present the petition against the current designs for the C51 Cycle Highway. At the close of the petition, 1065 people had given their support, including 802 in Abbey Road ward itself. This is a fantastic result and demonstrates the strength of feeling against C51 locally.
The petition was presented brilliantly by Hamilton Terrace resident, Stephen Margolis, who set out the serious flaws to the scheme – including key safety concerns, the enormous cost of ripping up the road, the environmental impact, and the loss of resident amenity in the form of 130 parking spaces and electric charging points. He made the crucial point that many of us involved are keen cyclists and regularly cycle up and down this road with their families. This is not an anti-cycling campaign, it’s about coming up with a solution that is proportionate and reflects how this road is actually used.
Cllr Galley later pressed the Cabinet Member for Highways on the data that the council are using to justify these invasive and costly schemes. In particular she asked for data on cycle incidents that have taken place on Hamilton itself. She drew attention to the fact the council’s own estimates of the volume of traffic on this road (3,000 cars per day in each direction) demonstrate that an advisory cycle lane would be entirely appropriate (in line with the London Plan and Westminster’s own Local Implementation Plan).
This is just the start of this campaign and we are incredibly grateful to all the residents who have played a part so far. If you want to get more involved over the coming months, please get in touch with us – particularly if you live on Hamilton Terrace.
For now, we await a formal response from the Labour-run Westminster City Council. We urge them to take the voices of local residents into account as they move through the decision making-process, use common sense, and come up with a design which reflects how Hamilton Terrace is actually used. In our opinion, option 1 is the only option that does this.
