The plans for Swiss Cottage which were cancelled in 2019

CYCLE safety measures that were axed after a massive row should be revived in a major revamp of Swiss Cottage, a residents’ group say.

The Belsize Society is calling for planners to go back to the drawing board and come up with a new vision for the outdated and dangerous “gyratory”.

The CS11 Super­highway would have pedestrianised Avenue Road between Swiss Cottage library and the Odeon cinema and removed the one-way system.

The society’s planning spokesman Dr Alan Selwyn said: “Camden has always been keen to fix the problems of the gyratory but until recently say TfL were not willing to discuss. But more recently they have been more open to considering it but it would of course require funding.

“We have seen many such schemes succeed across London and surely now the time is right for this to have come to the top of the pile for consideration.”

Redesigning Swiss Cottage one-way system would bring about a range of benefits including saving a popular “piazza” in Eton Road, the Belsize Society said.

The society has been campaigning against a plan to make all drivers deliver food and packages to more than 200 homes proposed at the 100 Avenue Road site through a tunnel beneath Hampstead Theatre.

This “stream of delivery traffic would spoil” the piazza that is host to the Swiss Cottage farmers’ market and other small businesses, the society said.

Dr Selywn said: “We could have a delivery lane designed to the front of the 100 Avenue Road development and this would save the Eton Avenue piazza from the majority of the stream of delivery traffic and allow it to survive essentially in its present form.

“It would allow wider pavement in front of the development, the entrance to the tube and the library and allow much safer pedestrian access too the central island.”

The Eton Road piazza has been listed as an Asset of Community Value following an application from the Belsize Society. The society said it had handed out 500 leaflets and received 260 responses in a “larger body of very powerful statements”.

The CS11 proposal caused a huge divide between Camden residents after it was unveiled by Sadiq Khan’s cycling adviser Andrew Gilligan at a packed meeting in St Stephen’s Church, Hampstead, just under a decade ago. Residents warned stop­ping traffic in Avenue Road would cause rat-run mania and gridlock traffic chaos in surrounding streets. There were concerns about pollution being moved from the Finchley Road to neighbourhood streets.

Thousands of people signed a petitions and there were several protests – some with supporters and opponents waving placards at each other in heated scenes.

In the end Westminster Council launched an injunction against the plans in the High Court that was upheld.

Under pressure, the Mayor of London was forced to scrap the cycling safety scheme leaving the outdated Swiss Cottage gyratory intact.

A new Vision for Swiss Cottage is due to be drawn up next year, the council has said.

Camden’s planning chief, Councillor Adam Harrison, said: “When TfL cancelled CS11, it was a major loss for the Swiss Cottage area. Gone was the opportunity to remove the dreadful gyratory and reduce traffic, noise and air pollution close to the library, market and theatre. We need more investment for Finchley Road, which is managed by TfL. We need to act. In the next year I want the council to work with communities and partners like TfL to bring investment to really improve Swiss Cottage and Finchley.”