• TRANSPORT for London’s decision to approve the Swiss Cottage section of CS11 should please no one. By failing to deliver the entirety of the advertised 6.8km cycle route to Portland Place, but only a small 300m section along Avenue Road, the scheme would create a cycle route to nowhere.

At the same time, five lanes of southbound traffic will be squeezed into just three lanes in front of the Swiss Cottage Odeon, leading to congestion, increased journey times, and rat-running.

Camden has the power to stop this. TfL is currently consulting on the traffic orders necessary to implement CS11. The deadline for consultation responses is May 31. This is the first time the detailed proposals for Swiss Cottage have been made public.

Publicity into the consultation has been woefully inadequate, meaning most residents are not aware of the detailed proposals. Further, inexplicably, TfL has divided the consultation into two parts (the second not yet been publicised), resulting in confusion as to what exactly is proposed and what people are meant to be commenting on.

Nevertheless. as highway authority for part of the remainder of Avenue Road, Camden can object to the orders and demand TfL agree that a public inquiry be heard into the scheme, so that its merits can be scrutinised by an independent inspector. Without this, TfL itself will decide whether the orders should be approved.

Camden is currently proposing to decide whether it approves of the scheme in early July. By then it will be too late. The deadline to object to the traffic orders needed to implement CS11 will have expired, as will the deadline for any legal challenge, and work will be about to commence.

Camden must object and demand a public inquiry into the orders so that the benefits and costs of this hugely significant proposal can be properly assessed. Failure to do so will impact on residential streets in north west Camden for years to come.

CLLR ANDREW PARKINSON
Conservative,
Frognal & Fitzjohns ward