Consultations over new bike lanes in Haverstock Hill have ‘been dragging on for months’

• CONSULTATIONS, feedback, further public engagement processes.

These are the replies of Camden Council for the delay in the building of bike lanes in Haverstock Hill, a process which has been dragging on for months now.

It simply beggars belief, when we have the worst death rates in Europe for Covid-19, exacerbated by secondary illnesses due to our levels of obesity (again the highest in Europe), and associated illnesses such as diabetes, that the council make no correlation between this and the need to encourage residents to take to two wheels instead of four.

And how much more consultation is needed when 9,400 premature deaths are associated with poor air quality in London, at a cost to the NHS of between £1.4billion and £3.7billion annually?

Amit Shah, the gentleman who suffers from anaphylaxis, was reported saying he is in fear for his life if clogged up roads delay him reaching hospital. But if more people took to the cycle lanes, then does it not logically lead to the number of car journeys reducing? So, actually, the roads would be freer of traffic, not worse.

As for shops who complain that the removal of car parking spaces would mean the death knell for their businesses: why?

What is stopping people from cycling to the shops? If they invested in a simple and cheap cycle stand in front of their stores, who’s to say the custom won’t increase?

Cycling is not the preserve of 20- or 30-somethings, food delivery companies and Mamils (middle-aged men in Lycra). It should be viewed as an important commuter mode of transport: to school, to work, to the shops.

Our air is cleaner, our health is better, the burden on the NHS is less, and with provision of proper segregated cycle lanes, we lessen the ghastly statistics of 125 deaths and 3,780 serious injuries on London’s streets last year.

Other capitals around Europe are investing massively in segregated lanes – and by this I just don’t mean the flagship cycling cities of Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

Across the Channel Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, is pumping €300million into cycling infrastructure, adding 650 kilometres of post lockdown cycleways.

Are we going to carry on dithering while London remains gridlocked, the sick capital of Europe?

Is this going to be another Heathrow third runway scenario where consultations took an incredible 15 years before the decision to go ahead was finally taken; in the meantime the cost of which more than tripled?

Stop consulting, Camden. Start building. You know it makes sense.

MARK VERITY
Primrose Hill, NW1