TfL’s guardrail removal scheme sees safety railings ripped from Camden roadsides
Thursday, 17th November 2011
Published: 17 November 2011
by TOM FOOT
HUNDREDS of safety railings have been ripped away from the edges of Camden’s main roads and junctions after the price of metal rocketed.
The iron guardrail barriers are being removed by a private contractor of Transport for London (TfL) to be “recycled back into the construction industry”, reused or sold for scrap.
TfL’s Guardrail Removal Programme has been welcomed by policy makers at Camden Council who believe the railings are an “unnecessary obstruction” and can provoke anarchic behaviour.
The claustrophobic sensation of feeling “penned in” by railings is too great, according to official guidance, and often encourages people to rebel by vaulting across them or to brazenly “jaywalk outside the guardrail”.
At the same time, the council said it would maintain guardrails outside schools.
The official TfL justification for the programme added that removing guardrails “can reduce community severance” and that the railings “can also be a barrier to movement, which can discourage walking and cycling”.
But cyclists are divided on the issues – some say the railings are dangerous but others say they now have nowhere to lock up their bikes.
Charile Nelson, 27, left his outside the O2 Centre in Finchley Road but when he came back from work both the bike and the railing was gone.
He said: “I thought I was going mad when I came back. TfL dropped it round the next day.
“It’s much nicer without the railings, I used to have to go round all the railings and now I cross the road where I like.
I think it will have a traffic-calming effect.”
New Journal reporters visiting Britannia Junction in Camden Town – the main area outside the tube station – witnessed pedestrians making ill-advised diagonal trips to cross the road.
But Labour Camden Town ward councillor Thomas Neumark said: “I think it [removing railings] gives a nicer feel to the place.”
The Britannia Junction is being transformed as part of the council’s “Naked Streets” programme into an easy-on-the-eye boulevard development.
Works will begin “shortly”, a council spokeswoman said.Sparks flew in Camden Town on Monday as all but one of the railings were torn down by workmen in large digger machines.
TfL chairman Peter Hendy told the chamber: “Of course it is an issue and it is likely to remain an issue so long as the copper and metal prices are so high.”
A spokesman insisted TfL was not profiting directly from the sale of the railings that are now owned by Ringway Jacobs Ltd, its contractor.
Ringway said some of the railings would be reused at a new “puffin” crossing at the junction of Euston Road and Fitzroy Street, Fitzrovia.
The rest are being stored at Ringway’s depot in Bow before being reused or recycled – “90 per cent of which goes back into the construction industry”, the company said.
A TfL spokesman added that railings were only being taken away where there were “no clear safety benefits” and where they were “inconvenient for pedestrians and intimidating for cyclists”.
A Camden Council spokeswoman said: “Proposals to remove guardrailing on Camden’s streets undergo a robust assessment and safety audit before any works are undertaken.”
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