Southwark Borough cycling strategy

Southwark Council in South London had an amazing transport plan for cycle tracks and cycle lanes. Cycle tracks are too expensive. Cycle lanes should be removed. Natural England called for a specific target on kilometres of new routes for cyclists. Southwark said they would rid the Borough of existing cycle lanes on 20 MPH roads.  List of 18 London cycling posts and videos.

Donnachadh McCarthy says Southwark has one of the lowest cycling rates of any European city and one of the highest fatality and serious accident rates in London. Lorraine Lauder as Mayor of Southwark replied that accusing this council of institutional murder only makes it look stupid.

Valerie Shawcross (Member of the London Assembly for Lambeth & Southwark + Labour Transport Spokeswoman at City Hall) did not have time to reply to the email I sent her with a link to a video about an incident at the Elephant and Castle Roundabout. A G4s van obstructed the traffic and TfL refused to take any action.

The policy was deeply unpopular and led to the publication of a revised  Southwark Borough cycling strategy in 2015. It stated that ‘We learnt a lot from the draft Cycling Strategy consultation’. Quite right. The Borough was able to boast, in 2015, that ‘Southwark’s ambitious Cycling Strategy has been awarded at the first ever Cycling Planning Awards, winning the prize for best cycling network strategy’. The award was from Landor Links and the judging panel had an engineering bias.