A trio of Conservative councillors have urged Westminster council to pause plans for London’s new Cycleway 43 to be extended through a street in their ward of Marylebone, saying that it would be “irresponsible” to go ahead before the impact of a fully pedestrianised Oxford Street becomes clear. They also claim residents weren’t properly consulted, and that the scheme “ignores the needs of pensioners, disabled people, and those who rely on local parking”. The London Cycling Campaign, however, has slammed Marylebone Conservative Action’s ‘calling in’ of the scheme in a meeting set to take place this evening, saying “a grown-up and sensible conversation” is needed around active travel and the environment.
Work on London’s Cycleway 43, that will cost an estimated £1.5 million, is set to begin imminently, and the section between Edgware Road and Gloucester Place has been hailed as “the first significant stretch of protected cycle infrastructure ever initiated by Westminster City Council on its own roads” by Westminster Cycling Campaign.
Plans to fully pedestrianise Oxford Street would see cars, buses, taxis and cyclists banned, and the section of C43 on George Street in Marylebone would offer cyclists an alternative segregated cycle route to bypass it without dismounting.
The Marylebone Conservative Action group says that the consequences of a pedestrianised Oxford Street are not yet known, so building the segregated cycle route would be “irresponsible”. It also says that there were 140 objections and only 13 responses in support in the latest Traffic Management Order consultation over the scheme.
“Labour is using loopholes to silence local voices”, says a community newsletter sent out by the group.
“The Traffic Management Order consultation ran between 16 July and 6 August, during the school holidays. Wetherby Prep, located on George Street and Bryanston Square, and the parents of hundreds of children were unable to respond.
“When the Conservatives ran similar consultations, responses from local residents were given greater emphasis in the process. Labour has ignored this, counting submissions from across London and beyond, even though this is a residential street.
“The scheme also ignores the needs of pensioners, disabled people, and those who rely on local parking, as all parking spaces will be removed.”
Despite the action group’s claims over the many objections to the TMO, a council consultation held in 2023 that attracted 1,374 responses shown 60% were in favour of the George Street cycle lane.
Simon Munk, head of Campaigns at London Cycling Campaign, told road.cc: “The Marylebone Conservative Action group have been asking their members to object to the TMO consultation for some time, despite that not being the point of a TMO consultation – something they fail to mention in their attack on C43.”
Marylebone Conservative Action names the Labour councillor Max Sullivan as the cabinet member who approved the scheme, also accusing him of “…signing over control of Oxford Street to TfL and the Mayor of London”, allowing the decision over the pedestrianisation of Oxford Street to be made at mayoral level without opposition from councillors.
Speaking to the Standard, Sullivan said: “This Labour council was elected on a platform of making walking and cycling safer and more pleasant. And it’s desperately needed — Westminster has the highest number of deaths and serious injuries of any London borough.
“Within Central London, which includes George Street, 90 per cent of all people who are killed and seriously injured in collisions are on foot, bike or motorbike.
“Safer pedestrian crossings and the protected cycle track will make it easier and safer for people of all abilities to walk and cycle.”
Marylebone Conservative Action says its ‘calling in’ meeting of the Climate Action, Environment and Highways Policy and Scrutiny Committee will hold Cllr Sullivan to account over the plans.
“It is deeply depressing and frustrating that in 2025, we still have organisations across London and beyond that seem to think any objections or concerns they come up with that retains the status quo are more important than progressive changes to deal with very real crises we all face,” said Munk.
“We need a lot more schemes like this and a lot fewer objections and call-ins for them. Indeed, we would love to see the Marylebone Conservative Action group holding their council to account for the toll of pollution, noise, road danger and more that Westminster Council has spent decades ignoring and residents in Marylebone have suffered for too long.”
It’s not the first time the Conservatives at council level have objected strongly to active travel and cycling schemes, objections which were often at complete odds with messages coming from Westminster when the former prime minister Boris Johnson called for “a golden age of cycling” back in 2020 (it could be said that more recent Tory leaders have had less active travel-friendly reputations).
Back in 2021, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea councillor Alison Jackson claimed segregated cycling infrastructure was “short-sighted” because “lanes will get jammed and outdated pretty quickly, which would “put residents at risk.”
More recently, in March of this year, a Conservative councillor in Manchester claimed that a major cycle lane project was “squeezing out motorists in favour of cyclists” during a fiery debate over the scheme and the wider implementation of active travel infrastructure in the area.
The Marylebone Conservative Action group’s meeting regarding C43 will take place at 6pm this evening at Westminster City Hall in Victoria Street.
19 thoughts on ““Deeply depressing and frustrating”: London Tory councillors say extending £1.5 million cycle route to bypass pedestrianised Oxford Street would be “irresponsible””
When an opposition party says
When an opposition party says they &/or a group they agree with were not consulted, it often means one or more of the following:
It could be 4., but it usually isn’t. As for carrying out a consultation at different times of the year, that is an appropriate criticism for a large significant consultation like a local plan or a major infrastructure, but pedestrianing a street is small beer in the grand scheme of things, whichever street it is… unless it’s the M6.
Also, this is a consultation, not a referendum. If 1 person raises a point or 100 people raise the same point, it should be the relevance and weight of the point that matters, not its popularity.
More favourbuts. We are in
More favourbuts. We are in favour of cycling and walking but…
I could be wrong but this seems like the usual “selective concern”. If only people would be honest with their objections! They’re always citing the disabled, the disadvantaged … isn’t it “anything which will mean inconvenience for me and my friends – or at least I believe it will (and probably it’ll ruin our neighbourhood)”?
It would be miserable to believe everyone is arguing in bad faith – so perhaps they’re thinking of how easy it is for a few more drivers to turn a flow into a jam, or block a space. The problem is *all the other drivers*. Perhaps we can admit to ourselves we’re sometimes less that careful and courteous – and we know some of those others are at best more pushy than us…
Turns out that the trajectory of mass motoring keeps causing problems. Really what they need is consolation, not consultation.
Pedestrianising Oxford Street
Pedestrianising Oxford Street isn’t a great idea rather virtue signalling by the mayor.
It’s already Bus, London Taxi and Cyclists only between Tottenham Court Road and Marble Arch.
If Pedestrians could pay attention to the Green Cross Code, instead of their phones, there would be no issues for them to cross Oxford Street safely.
The anti-cyclists are always
The anti-cyclists are always very good at advertising their stupidity.
Westminster conservatives “We
Westminster conservatives:
“We’re not unpopular enough yet lads, keep digging! With a little more effort we’ll be extinct in a couple more years, ten at the outside.”
Noting that their leader has
Noting that their leader has plumped for “drill, baby, drill” as a climate change policy, no doubt chasing after Reform’s “what problem again?”
If things don’t improve for Starmer I wouldn’t be surprised to see Labour promising “a Great British ICE SUV in every home by the time the waters rise over the door stills”.
(Can be done another way – see “Car crashes into building” thread).
“The Marylebone Conservative
“The Marylebone Conservative Action group says that the consequences of a pedestrianised Oxford Street are not yet known, so building the segregated cycle route would be “irresponsible”.”
I wonder if they went back in time, they would oppose every major progress that society made, simply becuase the consequences were unknown…
– man made fire? no thanks, I’ll stick with cold food
– why do we need wheels when we can walk everywhere or ride horses?
– telegrams? I’ll stick with snail mail
– why give women the vote…?
– to the Wright brothers: “If God intended man to fly, he’d have given us our own wings.”
They’re fine with anything
They’re fine with anything that was there before they hit their twenties or if companies were bribing them to spout their reactionary nonsense.
Now if Tories had shares in bike related indudtries, they’d be falling over themselves to promote bike lanes.
mitsky wrote:
— mitskyYes.
Simple avoid pedestrian only
Simple avoid pedestrian only areas, it’s no coincidence they’re redesigning cycle only routes in the name of active travel. Bearing in mind these town planners haven’t ridden a bike since they were a child so understand nothing in regards to routes of least resistance etc. Further more other active travel plans have by drawn up showing this same brain dead mentality.
The entire point of putting a
The entire point of putting a cycle lane here is the previous bus lane along Oxford Street will no longer exist…
Providing an alternative route for cyclists is part of pedestrianisation.
Or you have cyclists in the pedestrianised zone. Which given the level of foot traffic on Oxford Street almost certainly isn’t an appropriate solution…
qwerty360 wrote:
I still fail to see why a street which is 25m wide shopfront to shopfront can’t accomodate a suitably segregated cycle lane with appropriate crossing points. It feels to me, as so often, that cyclists are being punished for the sins of motor vehicles: look this street has been made hideous by pollution and collisions, let’s ban all wheeled traffic.
Rendel Harris wrote:
That’s exactly it – that and the concerns about anti-social cyclists being a threat that you’ve noted.
I think this is “those using cycle paths must stop at eg. pedestrian crossing lights exactly like motor traffic” writ large. Or concerns about bus stop bypasses.
In the latter case the problem is a) expectation / rule change and b) to be fair the “cycle paths” are or are more like cycle *lanes*. So there is little or no “waiting area” between the cycle area and the road where pedestrians could stop to deal with motor traffic after negotiating the cycle path.
Again I have some understanding. On the rare occasions I walk on the local shared use traffic free paths and there are more than the normal few cyclists it *does* feel a little less relaxed. I do keep my line / check over my shoulder more often. (UK so no marked space for different modes of course, although reasonable width for this country…)
Meanwhile in NL: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2019/06/12/how-hard-is-it-to-cross-the-cycle-path/
My solution to the problem of
My solution to the problem of antisocial cyclists if a cycle lane were to be installed would be to have a permanent presence of, say, half a dozen police officers patrolling the street with instructions to watch out for and deal with selfish/illegal cycling as part of their remit, I think the bad ones would soon get the message and go elsewhere. Obviously that would involve significant cost but the whole project is scheduled to cost £150 million (so let’s say £200 million given the way these things always overrun) so the cost of funding a few officers there would be a bit of a drop in the ocean. Furthermore, given the popularity of the street with pickpockets, shoplifters, phone muggers et cetera a permanent and visible police presence would seem to be desirable anyway.
Because the footfall is
Because the footfall is massive. Its going to end up one of the most densely populated streets in London outside of Chinatown and Soho.
Putting a bike lane through it would be absolute madness, cause massive conflicts between cyclists and pedestrians and defeat the point. Having a segregated lane a couple of streets away is a much better solution. Its Win-Win.
Secret_squirrel wrote:
There are plenty of examples in other European countries of cycle lanes running through pedestrian areas with heavy footfall without any “madness” or “massive conflicts”; look at the Rue de Rivoli in Paris for example, a similar massively popular, world-famous shopping street which has been closed to cars but still allows bicycles and has been a huge success. Hell, we even have some here in London that work absolutely fine (e.g. see below, Navigator Square in Islington, somewhere objectors claimed would lead to “carnage” but which works perfectly; see also the closure of the Strand east of Waterloo Bridge, a massive footfall area in which cycling is permitted and where again there are no significant problems). Diverting cyclists to take a roundabout twisting route in and out of backstreets, crossing many motor-vehicle-enabled roads and for many riders meaning beginning and/or ending on busy streets, is not a “win” for cyclists.
I agree – but alas SS has a
I agree – but alas SS has a point also. It is like any change – but here the vast majority will be walking and not cycling and (perhaps more importantly) will not be people with regular cycling experience themselves.
Another chicken and egg issue! Reading the comments on that BicycleDutch article there are several who explore this idea – it basically “doesn’t work well” (when initially introduced in other places) … until it does – at which point “everyone knows how to cross the cycle path / ride around people walking”! And then the only issue is “tourists / foreigners”.
It’s about human interaction, and while the “real rules” no doubt could be studied and listed nobody has codified or taught them. (Even where rules are in fact codified and should be taught – like the highway code changes – it turns out that change proceeds more like slow diffusion. *If* the change does in fact get adopted in practice…)
The “teacher” here is just repetition (encountering the same infra regularly, everywhere) and “other people” (humans copy others / go with the majority, especially if they’re unsure)
Half of Reading’s centre is
Half of Reading’s centre is included in the towns cycle network the other half cycling is not allowed. I will go around on the long circuitous route unless I’m locking the bike in the middle. It’s never pleasant riding.
(… so the “solution” is
(… so the “solution” is simply “more cyclists, and more of this kind of thing”!)