The Labour Mayor of London Sadiq Khan imposed the Park Lane Cycle Lane on us.
Yet when local people were finally given their say, the results were clear: the scheme is not supported. Despite this, Labour-run Westminster City Council has sided with the Mayor and called for the scheme to be made permanent. The council cannot become the Mayor's lap dog. When local people are asked for their views, the council must stand up and listen.
We spoke about the Park Lane Cycle Lane with Nickie Aiken MP and Cllr Rachael Robathan.
"Hello, I'm Nickie Aiken, Member of Parliament for the Cities of London and Westminster. And I'm here with Councillor Rachael Robathan, who is the Leader of the Conservative Group on Westminster Council.
"Rachael and I and other Conservative councillors have had a lot of correspondence over the last couple of years about Park Lane Cycle Lane.
"The Mayor of London put in the cycle lane literally with a few hours' notice to the council. And since then, we've seen Park Lane turn basically into a car park.
"Rachael, there's been a consultation carried out by TfL. What has been the result? "
Well, this is important because at last, Westminster people were actually able to have their say.
"What we found when you look at the results from the people who actually live here, is that almost three-quarters of them don't believe that it will do anything to improve cycling or walking.
"In fact, quite the reverse.
"And also, almost a thousand of them said that they were deeply concerned by the amount of congestion and raised emissions, and rat-running into our surrounding streets.
"So a really clear result that the Westminster people did not support this, but deeply disappointing that the City council, the new Labour administration, still went ahead and said that they called for it to be made permanent."
"So what Rachael and I are going to do is, we're going to keep putting pressure on Westminster Council to ensure that actually they don't become the Mayor's lap dogs, that they actually listen to Westminster people.
"And if they don't want something and they’re consulted about it, then Westminster City Council should not do it."
