Category: Consultations

Take Action: Say YES to plans for new look Westfield Avenue and a fresh start for cycling in the Olympic Park

An artists' impression of a two-way cycle track next to a wide pavement and a 2 lane road, with rain gardens separating the track and the pavement. People say, "so much space!" and "no more dodging trees & bus stops!" and one silhouetted person cycling is marked out as "this could be you in 2025!"
Respond to consultation By Sat 30 July

For a long time, Westfield Avenue has been one of the worst places to cycle in our borough. Pedestrian lights across tiny crossovers. Surprise obstacles. Pavement parking. Crossings where you’re expected to wait up to four times on caged traffic islands for the light to turn green. It’s an embarrassment to the Olympic Legacy.

A pedestrian crossing with a countdown traffic signal over a very small crossover into a loading yard on a four-lane road.
A central island on a complex and busy 6-lane road, with guardrail and concrete blocks obstructing the way. In the distance, a narrow cycle track is obstructed by signage.
WESTFIELD AVENUE TODAY: Cluttered, car-dominated, ugly

We’re thrilled that the London Legacy Development Corporation and Newham Council are consulting on a brand new design for Westfield Avenue, which they hope to start building next year and finish by 2025. This is unlike anything we’ve seen in the Olympic Park before: a high quality, best-practice design from the start, with people walking and cycling taking priority over motorists. It’s been 10 long years, but this is much better late than never!

A two-lane road across a bridge, with a bus stop island accessed by a zebra crossing over a two-way cycle track, a pavement on both sides, and planters separating the cycle track from cars.
WESTFIELD AVENUE PLANS: Convenient, comfortable, at a human scale

LLDC and Newham need to know that local people want it. If you visit Westfield or the London Stadium, or if you live nearby at the Carpenters Estate, or in Hackney Wick, East Village, or International Quarter—tell them “yes please!”

Visualisation of a road with trees on both sides and a 2-way cycle track on the left side, with bus stop bypasses and a lighted pedestrian crossing.

Take action by Saturday 30th July

Respond to consultation By Sat 30 July

Here’s how to tell LLDC and Newham Council that you like the plans for Westfield Avenue’s makeover:

  1. Go to westfieldavenue.commonplace.is. You might need to provide your email address
  2. Click “Have Your Say”
  3. On the proposals for Westfield Avenue:
    • Say “Strongly Agree” for widened pavements, widened crossing points, improved lighting, and location of bus stops
    • Say “Strongly Agree” for a 3m cycleway separated from the road and pavement with crossings, relocation of bus stops and loading bays, additional cycle stands and e-bike charging, and additional Santander cycle hire facilities on Westfield Avenue
    • Say what you think of the idea to move the Aquatics Centre cycle hire stand to Westfield Avenue, and also the locations of the motorcycle parking, taxi rank, loading bays, and the crossovers and side roads (e.g. at Glasshouse Gardens and Turing Street.)
  4. On the “Additional Features” page:
    • Say “Happy/Love It!” to the seating, trees, and planting on Westfield Avenue
    • Say what you think of the redesigned Stratford Walk (the bridge between Westfield and the Aquatics Centre)
  5. If you have time to write any more…
    • Support the new one-way southbound on Olympic Park Avenue—this will eliminate a rat-run through residential areas and allow a continuous cycle route across the railway line
    • Ask for further work in the future to redesign Marshgate Lane junction, to separate all modes and reduce speeds
    • Ask for a smooth, flat cycle track that’s accessible to all kinds of cycle (including tricycles, wheelchair clip-on hand cycles, recumbents, etc.)
Respond to consultation By Sat 30 July

Our Response

You can read our response to the consultation here. We strongly support the proposals, but suggest additional changes to the Marshgate Lane junction in future to fully separate all modes.

Westfield Ave consultation repsonse from Newham CyclistsDownload

MSG Sphere: Open letter to Sadiq Khan

We have written to the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, to ask him to refuse planning permission for the MSG Sphere when it is referred to him. You can read the text of the letter here, or see the PDF we sent to the Mayor and Dr Will Norman (London’s Walking and Cycling Commissioner) at the bottom of the page.

Dear Sadiq,

RE: Please refuse the MSG Sphere planning application (approved by LLDC)

We are Newham Cyclists, part of the London Cycling Campaign.

We are writing to ask you to direct refusal of the planning application for the MSG Sphere (19/00097/FUL) in Stratford, and insist the applicant makes changes to the proposed venue’s transport strategy and public realm design.

The MSG Sphere scheme as approved by the unelected members of LLDC’s planning committee:

  • Locks in a 0.44% mode share for cycling and potentially thousands of extra car trips to each event
  • Builds an important new cycle link that would be heavily used by schoolchildren going between East Village and the London Aquatics Centre—only to then routinely close it at peak times (including school run times) to allow ingress/egress to the Sphere
  • Endangers local people by proposing a highway design for Angel Lane that constitutes at least two “critical fails” according to the Government’s LTN 1/20 standard, locking out safe cycling on Cycle Future Route 7 for potentially decades and building in community severance
  • May overwhelm Stratford station, an already dangerously-congested station which is a critical link for many people (particularly key workers, who have to travel no matter what.) The Sphere proposals only include one extra entrance to the station, and propose nothing to fix the congestion in the platforms and subways
  • Provides no legal mechanism for Newham Council to stop the building operators from showing obnoxious or distracting advertising on the building’s surface that could propose a safety risk, by granting an advertising consent for illuminated video content on the Sphere’s surface for a quarter of a century
Continue reading “MSG Sphere: Open letter to Sadiq Khan”

Some January News

First: you may have seen in the Recorder that half of Newham Councillors are now backtracking on the proposal to introduce a charge for a first parking permit in Newham. They have apparently been “overwhelmed” by requests to remove what is falsely described as a “regressive tax”

Newham Cyclists have been supporting a permit charge since October 2018, as a necessary and welcome element of rebalancing of Newham’s traditional discrimination in favour of motor traffic at the expense of active travel; and in line with all other London boroughs save one.

You are invited to let your local councillors know your views and would be welcome to draw on our earlier letter or the following (in italics). This takes account of the implications Covid 19 and addresses head on the fallacy that a charge for a first permit is a tax:

Dear Councillor

I am writing to ask for your support for the Council’s proposals for an emissions related charge for a first on-street parking permit, as does every other London Council save one.  

This Covid-19 crisis has reinforced the absolute necessity for walking and cycling to be better promoted in Newham.  The Council needs to do some catching up following a long period favouring motor traffic over walking and cycling.  Without a significant change in direction Newham will continue to suffer from poor air quality and its crowded and polluted streets will create a hostile environment for residents and in the broader context the Council’s declaration of a climate change emergency will remain mere hollow words.  We need to avoid a migration back to private motor vehicles in response to Covid-19 making public transport less attractive.

As one of the objectives of the charge is to address the overcrowding of our streets it would be right for electric vehicles to be charged, albeit at the lowest rate.

It is wrong to consider a charge for a first permit as a “tax” on Newham’s motorists.  Rather it is the removal of an unfair subsidy to those better off residents of Newham who have access to a vehicle.  The free permit does not even cover the administration costs of the parking scheme let alone address the “external costs” to the community of private use as a car park of public space.

Second: Low Traffic Neighbourhoods are being implemented slowly in Newham. In the meantime more evidence (as opposed to the noisy myths against) is emerging of their benefits. Please continue to talk to your neighbours about the benefits of LTNs.

Third: our next (virtual) meeting is on 25 January at 7.30pm. If you would like any particular item to be on the agenda please let me know. In any event this will be an opportunity for a full catch up.

If you would like further information on any of the above please get in touch at our e-mail address.

Arnold

Westfield Avenue and Surrounding Streets

The LLDC and Newham Council have launched a consultation on Commonplace on how to improve Westfield Ave and the surrounding streets. The poor cycle facilities in this area is a matter on which Newham Cyclists have been campaigning for nearly a decade.

The deadline is 8 November.

In this document are some photographs of the area with our suggestions. Please feel free to use this in making comments or supporting the comments already made on the basis of this document.

Westfield Avenue and Surrounding StreetsDownload

Arnold

Low Traffic Neighbourhoods

The appearance of the first of the planned low traffic neighbourhoods in Newham has given rise to a good deal of discussion, some of it not based on evidence from other well established schemes.

Other local low traffic neighbourhoods are still in the pipeline.

Ealing Council have issued an interesting FAQ document setting out the case for, and the evidence concerning, “Street Parks” as they are being called in that borough.

A short factsheet more focussed on Newham indicates that the common issues that worry residents are either without foundation or are minor when compared to the proven benefits of low traffic neighbourhoods.

Arnold

Low Traffic Neighbourhoods land in Newham!

The announcement for the joint Low Traffic Neighbourhood with Waltham Forest was made yesterday. Full details are online:

https://www.newham.gov.uk/transport-streets/low-traffic-neighbourhood

https://newhamwalthamforestltn.commonplace.is/

Forest Gate Visual by Rachel Tripp
Maryland visual by Rachel Tripp

MSG Sphere Proposals – Take Action

Take action: Stop MSG Sphere bringing more cars to Stratford

Planning applications 19/00097/FUL and 19/00098/ADV

The Madison Square Garden company wants to build a new 21,500-capacity music venue next door to Stratford Station. It will be in the shape of a giant, glowing sphere (similar to Rover from The Prisoner), towering over residential blocks and the newly improved Stratford Town Centre.

We at Newham Cyclists are deeply worried by the proposals for the Sphere:

  • MSG have taken a look at the current travel patterns to gigs at the London Stadium, decided they’re acceptable (we disagree), and proposed exactly the same modal share for this new, ‘state-of-the-art’ venue. That means:
    • around 2,600 people driving to a sold out event—and a paltry cycling modal share of 0.1%. (It’s not like people will never cycle to gigs: the cycle parking at the All Points East festival in Victoria Park was actually full up!)
    • thousands more people through Stratford station at rush hour, making the station unusable for local residents and pushing many more people into their cars for short journeys.
    • We want a travel plan that aims for a cycling modal share of 5-10%, and doesn’t create worse overcrowding at Stratford station.
  • Cycling has been tossed a carrot in the form of an extended cycleway on Montfichet Road… but it looks just as bad as some of the older stuff in the Olympic Park. Interrupted by shared areas, with conflict between walking and cycling baked into the design. In 2019, we should be doing better.
  • More worryingly, their answer to the current pinch point and painted cycle lanes on Angel Lane (the Sphere’s main access road)? Narrow the road, so everyone—kids, grandparents, Disabled folk—has to cycle uphill, in front of lorries, artists’ coaches, speeding minicabs… the lot. This is bad. TfL have found that lots more people could cycle along Angel Lane in future (see TfL Strategic Cycling Analysis Route 7)—but if these plans go ahead, that will lock many of these people out from cycling here for decades. Considering we need to cut carbon emissions by 50% by 2030, that’s plain irresponsible. We want an exemplar cycling facility here.
  • Newham Cyclists will formally object to the MSG Sphere application… but we need your help. You can send your own response to the planning application and tell LLDC and MSG that this isn’t good enough.In a hurry? Use our template to send an objection email. Click here and your computer will pre-populate an email. Don’t forget to personalise it with your name, address, and ways the Sphere will affect you!

Got a little more time? Write your own objection like this:

  • Send an email to planningenquiries@londonlegacy.co.uk;
  • Quote references 19/00097/FUL and 19/00098/ADV;
  • State that you formally object to the planning application.
  • Feel free to use or reference our reasons for objecting—but don’t forget, put it in your own words and use your own experiences. (For instance: Live near Maryland? Don’t feel safe cycling in front of lorries on Angel Lane to get to the shops? Do your kids go to school in the Olympic Park? Expressing your concerns in terms of the impact the Sphere will have on you, and your family and friends, will hold more sway with the planning committee.)
  • Don’t forget to include your name and address.
  • Send the email by Friday 28th June 2019. You’ve not got long, but it doesn’t take long to object—just five minutes to send an email will be enough!