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Long Lane development via Southwark CouncilObjections raised to office bike parking scheme – because it will cause “bottlenecks and noise”
Residents living close to a planned office development in south east London that will have more than 200 bike parking spaces are objecting to the project – because they claim it will result in the road it is located on becoming congested with cyclists, whom they believe will also cause noise pollution.
The 11-storey building which is planned for Long Lane, Bermondsey, in the Labour-controlled London Borough of Southwark, will occupy the site of a former warehouse that is scheduled for demolition, reports My London.
The development, being undertaken by a company called 74 Long Lane Limited, will create approximately 475 jobs, with the proposed building including 204 cycle parking spaces within its basement.
And that bike storage facility has apparently sent some local residents into tailspin with one, Terry Weston, apparently speaking on behalf of other people living nearby, objecting to the development at a Southwark Council meeting.
“There’s currently planning provision for about 204 cycle spaces in the basement, as well as facilities for riders to change and shower before starting work,” she said.
According to agenda papers for the meeting of the council’s Planning Committee on Tuesday evening, 164 of those spaces are long stay, the other 40 being short stay.
“Let me be conservative in my estimate about how many individual journeys by cyclists through Southall Place each weekday there might be, let us choose the figure of 164 cyclists coming into work in the morning and 164 returning in the evening,” Ms Weston continued.
“This is likely to produce bottlenecks with delays for cyclists and additional noise in what has been up to now a very quiet residential street, I refer to Southall Place.”
At this point, you may have identified the erroneous assumption that appears to underpin her argument – namely, that there is an expectation that the cyclists will turn up en masse in a peloton of a similar size to that seen in the Tour of Britain (although perhaps without the police outriders, TV and press photographer motos, plus race direction and team support vehicles, etc).
That’s also ignoring the point that, from what we’ve seen in London office developments with dedicated bike parking facilities in recent months, they are seldom anywhere near full – in large part due to the hybrid working model that has become more common since the COVID-19 pandemic began – nor the fact that arrivals and departures would be staggered throughout the day.
The views of the objectors to the development on replacing the bike parking spaces with ones for motor vehicles were not reported.
The council meeting also heard from architect Simon Hudspith of the firm Panter Hudspith Architects, who said that the reason the cycle parking is “on that side of the building is we’re obviously making Southall Place wider. There is a zone for cyclists to stop and start which is a traffic-free area of the scheme.
“People stop and get their lights out or put their helmet on, there’s a certain amount of activity that happens with cyclists as they come in and out of buildings. It seemed to make sense that that type of activity happened next to the café where we’ve got much broader public realm and there’s places for people to sit and get themselves ready.”
The planning application was approved by five votes to nil, with one councillor abstaining.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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29 comments
Perhaps the objectors would prefer 200 spaces for cars. Of course, that wouldn't be noisy or cause bottlenecks!
Yeah, obviously you don't want cyclists coming to the building. the bicycles have such noisy engines and emit so much pollution and take up so much space on the road too.
Perhaps the locals think the office workers will arrive like a bike bus with some banging toons as well!
Struggling to think of 'regular' pedestrian office workers who make no noise whatsoever...
What a Gammon.
At what point do we stop listening to people that make rediculous arguments?
I know that we need to give people a say, but when all they say has no basis in reality or reason, when do you call them out and simply say "your argument makes no sense".
Do as Chris Boardman does:
"Don't give it air time. Don't answer stupid questions"
https://road.cc/content/news/chris-boardman-shuts-down-cycling-registrat...
Some people will go to argue against things simply because they don't like change, even if it might benefit them...
I had to re-read that as I thought she was complaining that this was great but they hadn't done enough for cycling!
Also note that an earlier proposal was dismissed in part because ... not enough provision for cars! "The proposed development, owing to the lack of any on-site accessible
car parking, would fail to provide for the parking needs of disabled
people working within the development ... "
Calling "nonsense on stilts" on the "quiet residential street stricken by cyclists" - but have a look yourselves. The argument itself is not ridiculous - in NL particularly quiet "home zones" (singular woonerf) are not main through-routes for cars OR bikes.
Think your link is to the other side of the proposed development. The objection makes a bit (a very little bit) more sense on Southall Place: https://goo.gl/maps/7dLkkbPhrMMB4zNV6
Thanks - yes, I was looking at one side, I think it's the whole block.
I can't see it's an issue, unless they're proposing firing cyclists down a ramp and direct out onto that short alley (and ideally they'd set them all off in a bunch, that would really fill that space for... 30 seconds?)
Good that they are providing decent bike storage but in terms of the complaints, in real world terms how many people will cycle to work there in reality? A glance at the map where this is and it is within walking distance of both London Bridge train and underground and Borough underground. I would expect the majority of people will be on public transport, cyclng around Bermondey isn't all that pleasant.
I don't know, people coming from the Greenwich area can come up the excellent new cycle lane on Jamaica Road and Quietway from Tower Bridge, coming from my neck of the woods (Peckham/East Dulwich) you can go virtually all the way to Elephant and Castle traffic free, up the NS Superhighway then onto the Quietway halfway up Blackfriars Road over to Tabard Street. Latter option also available for anyone coming down from the north. Certainly the main drags in Bermondsey are quite unpleasant but by adding half a mile or so onto one's commute there are plenty of backroad/segregated path options.
That's quite a nice change then. I admit to thinking more back to when I worked just off Borough High Street just over 10 years ago. I think that bit is still not all that great, I cycled there last year trying to route myself to West London and it still didn't seem great around London Bridge itself.
Oh yes, compared to ten years ago the improvement is astonishing. The start of this video might interest you (it's not me!), showing a safe quiet route south from London Bridge. Of course the alternative if going west is to cross over London Bridge (which now has cycle lanes) and join the Embankment cycle lane.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=racbp_J4A68
Yeah that is a lot better.
I live out of London, east of Dartford. What I have been doing, depending on how much energy I have is either;
1) Cycle to Dartford where it is cheaper and there are more trains, then lock the bike up there. They have secure storage which is good.
or
2) Take the brompton and again cycle to Dartford, but take it with me and go to Abbey Wood to the change to the Elizabeth line. I can then get to Acton and its just two miles cycling to Chiswick.
Coming back though the Elizabeth line and Abbey wood are very busy, so I cycle back to Charing Cross and come back that way.
I have also Cycled all the way from Abbey Wood, crossing the river via the Woolwich foot tunnel and then picked up CS3. It's a nice route but 20 miles to work. This was before the Elizabeth line opened, so now I would probably take the train to Canary Wharf to save chancing the lift being out at the Woolwich tunnel. Save that for summer when the weather is nicer though! Edit, just to say that starting at Abbey Wood for anyone thinking it is good, the roads from Kent into London are hideous, if you're lucky it is a mish mash of shared pavements along dual carriageway.
Our London office, a bit more central, though with some lethal roads, has many hundreds of bike spaces. These are well used and a booking system had to be put in place. It's a mix of fold-ups for people commuting from outside London (like me) all sorts of other bikes for the London residents. Our resident PBU would be amazed at the 100s of women cycling in before a day of professional client work. Our very corporate neighbours also have new buildings with plentiful bike storage... employees are demanding it. Any decent legal firm, professional services firm or global banking service building or refurbishing a building will put in substantial cycle storage.
Amazingly, despite thousands of bikes turning up in a relatively short space of time, say 7:30-9:30, it's not horribly congested or horribly noisy... even with rim brakes 😉
Er, surely you mean disc brakes??
👏 👏 👏
🤣
Having changed to sintered pads I can concur with that, I don't need a bell now
I mean, people could just bring their bikes into the office like I do.
Try harder.
I take it that you work from home then.
Ha. Poor residents would have a complete meltdown if they were living near Utrecht Station. 12500 bikes, 1000 hire bikes and a constant stream of cyclists. This clip is quite mesmerising. https://youtu.be/RnjfsNWzlF4
'The planning application was approved by five votes to nil, with one councillor abstaining'
Thankfully the Cllrs are not of the swivel eyed loon sort.
But one assumes that 200 - no, let's be conservative - say.....164 cars arriving would have no impact at all on the "up to now...very quiet residential street".
Let alone the construction traffic?
You should hear those Scribe freewheels - 100dB !
"I was up half the night when someone's bloody bike alarm went off..."
Interesting that the objections of the anti-cycling NIMBYs are getting more and more bizarre and desperate. Don't these people have any friends who they could bounce these ideas off, so that they don't look quite such up their own fundament fools?
Not sure Martin has friends. Not since the last one turned up at his house not attired to his liking.
Planning applications are a reliable source of bizarre and desperate objections from all sorts of NIMBYs, not just anti-cycling.