• SO to review: starting next year, the Belsize-Swiss Cottage-South Hampstead-Gospel Oak area faces:

• The CS11 cycle superhighway closing southbound traffic on Avenue Road behind the Swiss Cottage Odeon, dispersing cars onto South Hampstead/Belsize’s small surrounding streets and especially onto Haverstock Hill.

• Full/partial closure of Adelaide Road for the next seven years thanks to HS2, with traffic diverted onto Haverstock Hill, Fleet Road, Malden Road, Pond Street and Mansfield Road.

• Destruction of the Royal Free parking structure followed by erection of new seven-story building, resulting in heavy construction traffic on already-clogged Pond Street with knock-on effects on Fleet and Mansfield Roads, plus hundreds of would-be parkers cruising surrounding streets in search of a space.

• Sixty to 70 HS2 construction-related HGVs per day trundling down narrow England’s Lane and then up Haverstock Hill and Rosslyn Hill.

• And if 100 Avenue Road building gets permission, yet more construction vehicles in the Winchester Road area.

My question is, when any of these individual projects were being considered, were the effects of the other projects happening contemporaneously taken into consideration?

We know that the effects of HS2 works did not, unbelievably, form part of Transport for London’s CS11 traffic modelling. Were there similar omissions for the others?

Basically, for the next few years at least, the cumulative effect of these projects happening simultaneously will mean everything between Adelaide Road, South End Green, and the Heath is going to have M25-like tailbacks and HGV numbers, with predictable effects on air pollution, local shops access, and general quality of life.

ELLIN STEIN
Rona Road, NW3