Westminster Labour has set out four questions for the city’s new Conservative administration on cycle safety, following last weekend’s serious collision at Hyde Park Corner – at the junction with Grosvenor Place, long identified as one of London’s most dangerous for cyclists.
The London Cycling Campaign named Hyde Park Corner in 2022 as one of the capital’s most dangerous junctions for cyclists, and research published last October by University College London found that most cycling near-misses in London happen on roads without dedicated cycle infrastructure. The case for protected provision is well established.
People on cycles are the most commonly injured of any road user in Westminster. Under Labour, Westminster worked constructively with TfL to tackle the most dangerous junctions and create safer cycling routes – including the complex redesign of the Lambeth Bridge roundabout, the recently completed safer crossing over Marylebone Road from Harewood Avenue to Enford Street as part of Cycleway 51, and advanced plans for a new safe cycling route parallel to Oxford Street.
Cllr Thomas has set out four questions for the new administration:
- Will it work with Transport for London and the Mayor, not against them, to keep delivering safer junctions and routes – as Labour did?
- The Conservatives’ manifesto promises to “review all major road schemes.” Will it commit to delivering, in full, the safer streets programme in the pipeline, or will residents see schemes scaled back or dropped?
- Will its first budget sustain, or increase, the council’s investment in cycle and pedestrian safety, or reduce it?
- Will it recommit Westminster to London’s Vision Zero ambition of zero deaths and serious injuries on the city’s streets, and set out a plan to deliver it?
Under Labour, Westminster published its Transport Strategy, committed to Vision Zero (eliminating all fatalities and people seriously injured on our roads), and commenced construction on cycleways C63, C43 and C51. It also pioneered side-road zebra crossings, and improved tactile paving for visually impaired residents.
The new administration must now decide whether to carry this progress forward – or unwind it.
Cllr Rhys Thomas, Labour councillor for Harrow Road ward and Shadow Cabinet Member for City Management and Streets, said:
“Our thoughts are with the cyclist injured at Hyde Park Corner this weekend, and with his family. We wish him the fullest possible recovery, and we thank the emergency services and hospital staff caring for him.
“Sadly, for years, Westminster Conservatives have treated cycle safety as a cynical culture war prop rather than the important question of public safety it actually is. They are now in office, and they have to prove they can govern on this important issue for Westminster residents.”