The Council has responded to new guidance from the Secretary of State for Transport to test out new traffic to encourage more cycling and pedestrian movement and few cars on London’s streets.

Most of the publicity locally has been on further vehicle limits in Portobello Road and a pop up cycle way in Kensington High Street.  But amongst the package of measures is a proposal for a Low Traffic Neighbourhood in parts of St Helens and Dalgarno wards.

The impact of this scheme would be dramatic, and it will no doubt have supporters and objectors.  The Council says The instruction from the Government is that councils must introduce changes likes these quickly, which does not allow time for the level of consultation that we would normally like to do. We would implement this scheme on an experimental basis. We would consult on whether to keep, modify or remove the scheme, within six months. The barriers and cameras could be removed, or relocated, easily and quickly if required.

The Council wants responses by 26th June and have asked for feedback from ward councillors, St Helens Residents Association and from BetterStreets4RBKC.  There is no consultation web page on the Council website so comments (of which there will no doubt be many can be sent to sthelensassn@aol.com and these will be collated and forwarded on.  And/or you can send comments to ward councillors.

We discussed very briefly the idea of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods at our March 12th meeting.  There are examples in several Boroughs.  But we had no idea then that events would move so fast.

If you ever want to see what life in the neighbourhood like with measures that could solve the daily traffic queues to exit North Pole Road, now is your chance.  We need to give our views on the realism of these proposals and where traffic may divert to and create new problems.

The full version of the proposal can be downloaded below.