• COUNCILLOR Adam Harrison, attempts to justify the cycle lanes which we now learn will definitely be built on Haverstock Hill, (A question of road safety, August 26).

Can we all agree that cycling is to be encouraged, but only if not to the detriment of others who have a greater claim to priority?

Here are three questions for Cllr Adam Harrison:

1. In the consultation documents, was there any mention of the fact that traffic islands, sometimes rightly known as “refuges”, are being removed?

And if not why not? And, please, don’t say that the traffic islands are a detail. They are desperately important to the young, the old and the less able; assuming we matter.

2. Did anyone represent us pedestrians? I have seen a claim that the cycle lanes have the support of Living Streets.

That organisation was formed as the Pedestrians’ Association, whose sole purpose was to advance the interests of pedestrians.

When it changed its name to Living Streets over 20 years ago it expanded its purpose to also support cycling; which probably sounded fine at the time.

However the cycling campaigners have largely taken it over, so that when the interests of pedestrians and cyclists conflict it is the cyclists who claim to represent Living Streets.

We have even seen Living Streets supporting traffic schemes that allow cyclists to share pavements with pedestrians, as recently happened at the Haverstock Hill and Prince of Wales Road junction. Fortunately someone closely reading the scheme’s small print picked it up and we managed to have it removed.

3. What was the point of having a consultation through Commonplace and then ignoring the result, thus discrediting the process both for the Haverstock Hill scheme and for future consultations?

I see that Cllr Harrison tries to make political capital for his schemes. The implication is that, in common with the general perception of Labour, the schemes advance the interests of the weak over the powerful: cyclists being the weak, car drivers being the powerful.

He should be careful. Most Labour members I know see it differently, with the cycling campaigners being the strong. Indeed being bullies.

The weak are those who are deprived of traffic islands and so have to look in eight different directions before feeling safe to embark on crossing the road, and that includes when crossing on a zebra crossing.

Many I know will not be voting Labour next May unless it is for a candidate who has stood up against the Harrisons in power.

Please don’t assume you have a right to govern because this is Camden. We have been here before. Remember Tony Blair? Remember the Lib Dem / Conservative coalition we had for a few years in Camden?

BRIAN BENJAMIN, NW5