Pop-up cycle lanes in Kensington High Street will not be reinstalled, rules council

Labour says decision is ‘completely bonkers’ as councillors back long-term review
Cyclists joined a protest to save the High Street Kensington cycle lanes
Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures Ltd

The “covid pop-up” cycle lanes in High Street Kensington will not be reinstalled, the Tory leadership of Kensington and Chelsea council ruled tonight.

The decision prompted immediate calls from the London Cycling Campaign for Transport Secretary Grant Shapps and London mayor Sadiq Khan to intervene.

The lanes were ripped out after seven weeks last December without consultation, after complaints from some residents and businesses.

This sparked an outcry from many cyclists, including staff and pupils at schools in the borough. Mr Khan demanded their reintroduction after a poll of residents found two-to-one in favour.

But a meeting of the council’s “leadership team” tonight decided unanimously, after a 70-minute discussion, not to reintroduce the lanes.

Instead it backed an option that will involve the borough considering an “alternative scheme in the long term”.

This will involve commissioning research into “transport patterns in the post-covid world”. The research could begin in the “summer” but council leader Elizabeth Campbell said tonight it “may take a year” to consider all the options.

Cllr Campbell said: “It’s pretty clear the consensus is we will not be reinstalling a temporary cycle lane.”

The Tory councillors said the lanes, which were introduced on either side of the high street, had increased vehicle congestion, including to emergency vehicles. 

Pat Mason, leader of the council’s opposition Labour group, said: “Any argument that says we can’t have cycle lanes because it will cause too much traffic congestion is completely bonkers.

“We are going to have to do this under our climate change policy that we passed in January 2020.” 

He added: “Are we going to kick the cycle lane into touch? Is it because of the mayoral elections? Or is it just because we don’t really mean we want to have an environmentally-friendly borough where people cycle instead of driving polluting cars? It’s a fundamental question about the direction this borough wants to go in.”

Cllr Mason said the temporary lanes had been “shoddy” but called for the immediate reintroduction of a better scheme.

The lanes were to be funded by TfL from Government cash for schemes to discourage a “car-led recovery”. The council faces being about £200,000 out of pocket as TfL is unlikely to reimburse the costs of installing and then ripping out the measures, mostly plastic “wands”.

Councillors said they had been inundated with emails from both sides of the debate. They were invited to consider four options but many, including Ms Campbell, felt the data - in dozens of pages laid out by council officers - was “inconclusive”.

Cllr Campbell advised her colleagues that they had to take account of the views of people who travel through the borough as well as residents living near the high street. “We need to take this decision in the public interest,” she said.

She said the council was faced with the challenge of not knowing how people would choose to travel as the country emerged from lockdown. About 3,000 cyclists a day had used the lanes.

“The decision we are faced with now is whether we reintroduce a temporary cycle lane in Kensington High Street as we come out of lockdown,” she said.

“We are looking into a future. We don’t have a crystal ball.

“The temporary cycle lane won’t go in but we do want to have a look at what the world looks like post-covid and how we should respond.”

Cllr Catherine Faulks said residents in her ward had been “completely exasperated” by the cycle lanes.

Cllr Mary Weale said she had “really enjoyed” using the “wonderful” cycle lanes. “This scheme, though it may have suited cyclists very well, it didn’t suit all other road users.”

She said emotions had run so high that a “reconciliation process” was needed.

Cllr Anne Cyron said: “This is a completely flawed scheme.”

Many cyclists took to Twitter to express their dismay at the council’s decision.

Mr Khan has previously suggested that he might seek for Transport for London to take control of the road to allow the lanes to be reintroduced. This would be unprecedented and require the support of the Transport Secretary.

London Cycling Campaign healthy streets campaigner Clare Rogers said: “The cycle tracks, even though they were only in for a few weeks, proved a crucial safety measure for thousands of people daily, both on a strategic east-west route for London and for local trips such as families riding to school, on what was, and now is again, the most dangerous road in the borough for cycling.

“Kensington and Chelsea is clearly incapable of behaving as a responsible local authority for this highway, or following its own policies on road safety and the climate emergency. The Secretary of State for Transport and Mayor of London must address boroughs like this one, that act against or ignore government, regional and their own policies.”

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