Councillor Adam Harrison 

Open letter to Councillor Adam Harrison 

• I REFER to Camden Council’s planned scheme to build bicycle lanes in Haverstock Hill.

When consulted somewhat belatedly on the plan I objected to it, along with an overwhelming majority of residents and merchants – objections ignored in the spirit of democracy.

Your statement reported in the CNJ of August 19 that there are numerous schools on or close to Haverstock Hill and that the bicycle lanes will improve the health of children is ludicrous.

There is but one school, the Rosary Catholic Primary School, and I find it unlikely in the extreme that parents of children attending that school will want to see them in bicycle lanes on weekdays.

If you had monitored the bicycle lanes now installed in Haverstock Hill and Prince of Wales Road, you would have noticed two things.

First, they are poorly used. Secondly, traffic builds up behind buses stopped at the new-fangled bus stops and causes more pollution, and therefore damage to the health of children (pollution having been recently recognised as a cause of child mortality in London) than bicycle lanes might reduce.

NICOLAS GREENSTONE, NW3