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news
Cycle Enfield Option 1 crop.pngMini Holland row becomes focus of Enfield general election campaign
A Mini-Holland scheme in north London has become the bitter focus of a general election row.
Candidates have set against one another as they debate the Cycle Enfield, which plans to spend £42 million on safe cycling routes.
The Tory candidate David Burrowes says he will scrap the scheme if elected.
He claims that businesses are being affect by the disruption.
“Cycle lanes have their place and merits, but it’s a whole different picture when you’re talking about an outer London suburban high street and you’re trying to put a segregated cycle lane in at a huge amount of cost,” Mr Burrowes told the Evening Standard.
He added: “The result of it is not actually improving air quality […] and people being funnelled in a congested tailback of buses and cars.
“It may work in other parts of the country, but as far as Enfield’s concerned, there’s not the broad approval that I think would need to be there to go through.
“There’s already been incidents of cars being written off and pedestrians tripping over the things separating the cycle lanes.
“What they need to be ready to do is if evidence suggests that it’s causing safety problems, then they need to have to the guts to say ‘we’ve not done it properly and we’ll find a different way of doing it’.
“That would entail trying to find ways of trying to find ways to mitigate the problems that are happening and not having the cycle lane in the same way… maybe being less segregated.”
Labour are the dominant party in Enfield, and candidate Bambos Charalambous said: “I don’t think it’s a primary issue.
“I think people have raised some valid concerns about it [but] the scheme isn’t up and running yet. People need to be patient and allow the scheme to get up and running and see where it goes from there. I think it’ll be a good thing for the area.
“I’m very much excited by it,” he added.
A London Cycling Campaign spokesman said: “Once completed, the scheme will bring benefits to businesses by creating places that are easier and more attractive to visit, shop and do business in.
“Major roadworks can cause short-term, localised congestion and pollution – but longer term these schemes will help lots of people swap unnecessary car journeys for walking and cycling, boosting local business and residents’ health, while cutting congestion, air pollution and collisions.”
Last year we reported how a judicial review by campaigners to stop a “Mini Holland” project going ahead in North London was rejected.
The group, called Save Our Green Lanes (SOGL), said the Cycle Enfield scheme, which will see private cars diverted from Enfield’s high street and cycle lanes installed in Palmers Green and Enfield Town, would worsen air pollution and have little or a negative effect on business.
However, the High Court dismissed the case earlier this month and ordered SOGL to pay the council’s costs.
Mr Justice Ouseley disagreed with the group’s assertion the scheme was “unfair” and the consultation process “flawed”.
Costas Georgiou, one of SOGL’s leaders, said the group had witness statements from people denied access to paper copies of the consultation, but the judge accepted the council’s claims documents had been provided to people who needed them.
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24 comments
It gets to the point where some days I wish Trump would do us all a favour, push the button and put us out of our misery.
Who needs "Skynet" to rise up and dominate humanity? The metal boxes enslaved mankind decades ago and they didn't even need sentence to do it.
#4footsnake!
Typical Tory. Yet another reason to oust the odious b@st@rds.
Enough said
You're right, and cycling is a political issue. The tories have issued the much delayed and entirely ineffective Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy, ably summed up by CUK as "Very little strategy and even less investment." and they had to be taken to court to get the air pollution strategy out of them.
Not sure labour or the lib dems are much better, which is why, amongst other things, I'll be voting Green.
“It may work in other parts of the country,..."
The cliche of an excuse for everyone who is totally against something but doesn't want to confess their real reason, which is obviously, being a tory knob, is that he hates cyclists. He just can't say so in public.
I'm just grateful that this waste of space, oxygen and food isn't standing were I live. Mind you, they are pretty bad too.
“What they need to be ready to do is if evidence suggests that it’s causing safety problems, then they need to have to the guts to say ‘we’ve not done it properly and we’ll find a different way of doing it’.
Sorry, is he talking about cycle lanes here? because this argument seams to apply more to the status quo and lack of infrastructure.
Is 1800 people killed on the roads annually not enough proof to Mr Burrows that ever increasing motor vehicle use is not the solution we should be persuing?
Get out of those nasty, polluting steel boxes and start pedalling. Problem solved.
If your vision is so poor you can't see the street furniture, you're not safe to be around heavy, high speed steel boxes are you? Clearly, people are safer. Furthermore, each written of car is a good thing, resulting in less pollution, congestion and danger for all. The prior owners should simply spend their insurance cash on some nice bicycles for the entire family.
The only "safety problems" this gentleman is interested in are the ones that might prevent him from playing IRL Carmageddon on the city streets.
I find it hard not to see people like this guy as actively wicked. It's as if they _want_ people to suffer from poor health. They get a perverse satisfaction from the Orwellian joy of using 'green' language in order to make the environment worse for people.
Its not a party-political thing - there are Labourites who are just as malevolent, e.g. Rob Flello (and Dave Hill comes close, though I'd charitably like to think he's at least pro-public transport). And there are Tories who aren't (Boris, for all his other faults, or Peter Hitchens).
It's kind of annoying that if sense ever prevails, the petrol-heads will benefit along with everyone else. Justice really demands that there should be a 'come the great day...they'll be first against the wall' sort of reckoning for these people, but the active-travel issue doesn't work like that, more's the pity.
Exactly. I was actually going to vote Tory at the GE (because I like the taste of baby, obviously), but I'm increasingly coming to realise that none of the current pols on offer deserve my vote and very few are impressive enough to warrant the £75k a year they trouser in basic pay. So, I shall draw a large bicycle on my ballot paper, and maybe a cartoon cock-and-balls or two.
Anyone who can commit the words "I will support effective action to reduce pollution and protect our green spaces. I will continue to oppose the current Cycle Enfield scheme." to paper and publish it is just too fucking thick to be allowed to make decisions about transport infrastructure.
Great stuff guys!
I remember when the comedy pages of Private Eye were actually funny!
Don't you have a Green candidate? Much better than spoiling your ballot paper.
Reading his website has the gem about going to Uni with Sajid Javid and renaming the Student Union 'Norman Tebbit corridor' who was of course a major advocate for increased cycle use by the unemployed.
If drivers are writing off their precious vehicles by driving them into the protective measures seperating the cycling infrastructure I would say that the measures are actually working, and stopping large vehicle ingress. As Easy as riding a bike has some fine writing on motorists and inanimate objects
https://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/the-revenge-of-the-...
They put a protected cycle lane in Bristol and they had to change the protective measures used because the motorists complained: it was all brought to a head after an SUV managed to run aground on a bollard IIRC.
Motorists of all kinds managed to hit te planters used for the light segregation on Royal College Street in Camden.
Since these people are not gracious enough to accept the very light measures used to protect vulnerable road users, a heavier weight of material needs to be used.
Perhaps their driving skills would improve if the planters were bolted down, or lined or secured with some heavier duty materials like concrete.
Isn't the point of the scheme to improve quality of life and quality of breathable air? I think he and Save Our Green Lanes (...So We Can Drive On Them) are missing the point if they think that this was a decision made purely on economic grounds (mind you, he is a Tory so if it can't be monetised then he's not interested). Anyway, we all know the studies where businesses haven't a real clue about how their customers actually get to their stores...
Another god-bothering upper-class dimwit who believes that streets are primarily for people in big steel boxes. I had a quick look on the internet for his background. Completely unsurprised at his support for "Tory values" and attitudes against the "liberal elite" (whoever they are).
People like this need to just fuck right off.
Another gem from the manifesto of David Burrowes (Con.):
"Protect Local Environment: I will support effective action to reduce pollution and protect our green spaces. I will continue to oppose the current Cycle Enfield scheme."
There’s already been incidents of cars being written off and pedestrians tripping over the things separating the cycle lanes.
Have people lost the ability to look at their surroundings in Enfield?
They're probably as stupid as everyone else in Britain seems to becoming. Wandering around glued to their bloody phones as if missing a message was the end of the world
.
Remember: on the roads the more vulnerable (cyclists) are told to take responsibility for their own safety rather than expect motorists to take more care, and yet the people saying that are happy to wander through shared space looking at their phones instead of where they're going and expect everyone else to look out for *them*.
"There’s already been incidents of cars being written off and pedestrians tripping over the things separating the cycle lanes."
Lol. I am sure we could come up with our own very long list of 'incidents' where something happened to a cyclist.
I live in his seat. He won't be getting my vote. In fact, I think he'd be surprised about the high level of support amongst local people who aren't as vocal as the rabid anti-cycling brigade who have been campaigning on spurious straw-man arguments against the changes (see http://saveourgreenlanes.co.uk if you want a laugh)
I don't really see how he can scrap the scheme given that it's already being built.
Does anyone know how an MP, other than a secretary of state, could stop this scheme? Surely this is local planning issue and, as the candidate aiming to retain the seat, why hasn't he already blocked it if he really has the power to do so? This suggests a degree of hubris on Mr Burrowes part.