• CAMDEN Cycling Campaign, as its website shows, has been campaigning for years to have new cycle paths across Hampstead Heath.

Our society was founded as a charity 121 years ago with the primary object of preserving the Heath as a “wild and open space”.

It will not come as a surprise, therefore, to learn that we will oppose unconditionally the creation of any more cycle paths across this peaceful green space that is already so heavily used by pedestrians.

It is not as if the campaign is seeking an increase in purely recreational cycling, for which there are already four cycle paths (>3km) across the Heath. As it makes clear, its purpose is to relocate commuting cyclists from the surrounding roads onto the Heath.

The many thousands of people who have campaigned, financially, politically and practically, since the 1860s to preserve the Heath did not do so to facilitate its incorporation into London’s failing transport infrastructure.

MARC HUTCHINSON
Chair, The Heath & Hampstead Society