Minutes of Camden Cycling Campaign Business Meeting on 14th August 2006
Present: James Brander, Stefano Casalotti, John Chamberlain, Jean Dollimore (chair), Meade McCloughan (minutes) and Helen Vecht.
Apologies: Jane Boardman, Anne Boston and Richard Fletcher.
Matters Arising
• Venues for CCC meetings – we are staying in Castlehaven till December, then relocating to Primrose Hill in the new year.
• Speaker for October meeting – Simon Brammer, LCC Director, on the topic of ‘active spectatorship’ and the Olympics. It would be good to get people from local sports groups along: Stefano to contact the Council’s Sports dept; James to use his contacts list.
CCC representative on St Martins Design Panel
• Students at St Martin’s are being invited to design a safer parking area outside the Cochrane Theatre.
• Stefano agreed to be the CCC representative on this panel, meeting three times (Oct, Nov, & March).
• Jean to notify Chris Nicola (LBC).
Spaniards Road
• Sam Longman (LBC) is doing a local safety scheme here and is interested in having a shared-use track on the Heath extension side of the road.
• Jean is due to meet Sam and Simon Lee (Superintendent of Hampstead Heath) to discuss this further.
Meeting with Dave Stewart (LBC) on 9th August – report from Jean and John
• Jean’s minutes of this meeting had already been circulated.
• Gordon Square zebra crossing: seems fine; may want to review the area if the Woburn Square cycle track is reinstated/redeveloped.
• Baynes Street: signage has been reviewed and is to be improved.
• Ampton Street: it was agreed that there might be visibility problems with the ‘wavy’ track option – Jean to let Dave know (but the decision will probably be made by the local residents).
• Link 27: work has already started on the contraflow at the west end of Montague Place; people encouraged to look through the CRISP report and identify other items which could be recommended to Dave as ‘quick wins’.
• Link 28: the same will probably also apply to the Link 28 CRISP report once finalized.
Cpec meeting on 8th August – report from John
• John’s notes of this meeting had already been circulated.
Cycle Maintenance Workshops
• A series of workshops has been arranged for the autumn (Oct 7th / Nov 4th / Dec 2nd).
• Jean, Meade and Stefano are meeting with Velorution on the 4th September to discuss the content.
• Jean has notified London Cyclist; Helen to include in the next CCC newsletter.
• John wondered whether anyone from CCC would be present to assist with the workshops.
Car Free Day (usually 22nd September)
• Still haven’t heard anything from the Council, so can safely assume this is a non-goer this year.
WCRSAG (Camden Council Walking, Cycling and Road Safety Advisory Group)
• Next meeting will be on the 26th September; Jean can’t go.
• King’s Cross will be on the agenda, so we need someone from our KX team to attend.
• James may be able to go, but may be away, so Jean to ask Anne if she could go, with John as backup.
• Jean to find out from Sam Monck which officer is dealing with WCRSAG and notify to whom to send the agenda.
• We should ask for a follow-up audit on ‘ripple print’.
Summer Festivals
• Swiss Cottage, 19th August: James will be there from midday; Meade will bring maps along.
• Marchmont Street, 9th September: Stefano is going, James may be able to do Dr Bike.
• It was felt that our attendance at events this summer had not been particularly effective and we should review our commitments next year.
• It was agreed not to participate in the December Cecil Sharp House ‘eco-fair’.
Minutes of Camden Cycling Campaign Main Meeting on 14th August 2006
Present: as above, plus Tony Alexander, Paul Braithwaite, George Colouris and Dominic Tinley.
Also present: Cllr Alexis Rowell.
Olympics 2012
• Dominic reported on the recent meeting of the LCC Olympic Group he had attended as CCC representative.
• A nine-point LCC ‘wishlist’ was agreed: active spectatorship, role models, integrated transport, venue accessibility, public use of velodrome, high-quality facilities, keeping existing routes open, parking & lasting outcomes; these points now need to be grouped and refined.
• LCC still seems rather diffident about Sustrans massive ‘greenway’ project (‘GOAL 2012’).
• Dominic agreed to e-mail the newsgroup with details of & links about the Sustrans project and ask whether this is something CCC should actively support.
• If the response is favourable, Dominic at the next Olympic Group meeting to add CCC to the list of borough groups supporting GOAL 2012.
• The next Olympic Group meeting is on the 14th September – Dominic should be able to attend again.
Camley Street link
• Paul Braithwaite, CCC member and now also Camden councillor (Lib Dem/Cantelowes), provided a very thorough up-date on the proposal for a cycle link between Camley Street and Agar Grove.
• It had originally been hoped that funding for this would come from the King’s Cross development. However, the developers are not going to release any money for such schemes until after the development works have actually started, and this still looks some time away. So Paul thinks it would be much better to de-link the Camley Street proposal from the King’s Cross development and try and get the Council to put it in itself.
• To this end, Paul has been in touch with Camden Council officers to see what be done. Finding funding for the link may be difficult, but Sam Monck is confident that money can be got from Transport for London this year to draw up a proper design, following which it could go to consultation.
• Even if the financing is resolved, difficulties will remain, in particular with possible local opposition and also safety & security issues. CCC will need to be involved in dealing with these.
• The meeting thanked Paul for his comprehensive up-date and determination to get the cycle link implemented.
Hampstead Heath
• Cllr Alexis Rowell (Lib Dem/Belsize), Chair of the Council’s Sustainability Taskforce (aka ‘eco-champion’) was welcomed to the meeting.
• Cllr Rowell outlined his plan for encouraging more schoolchild and commuter cycling on the Heath. This would involve using paths on a time-limited basis during weekdays, with one north-south and one east-west route remaining open for cyclists full-time. Thus cyclists would lose the ability to ride on some routes at some times (i.e. weekends, weekday middays, etc), but would gain access to other routes at some times (i.e. weekday commuting hours).
• The Heath and Hampstead Society has so far not rejected this idea; Cllr Rowell and his colleague Cllr Maya de Souza (Highgate/Green) are to meet with representatives of the Society and Simon Lee (Superintendent of Hampstead Heath) in September and sound them out more fully.
• Much concern was expressed about the proposed restrictions on what cyclists can currently do on the Heath; at the very least, if Cllr Rowell’s compromise was to be acceptable to CCC it would have to be clear that the gain outweighed the loss (and this could be difficult to ascertain).
• It was also felt that the Heath and Hampstead Society was unlikely to be receptive given some of its members’ belief that commuter cyclists are a problem
• Various alternative approaches were suggested: (i) address the Society’s concern about speeds by getting the 8 mph limit enforced (‘speed guns’ could be used for this) and having pedestrian priority insisted upon (e.g. by not marking out cycle lanes); (ii) propose trial periods for new routes followed by review.
• Whilst no approval was being given to Cllr Rowell’s proposal, it was agreed that we should wait and see what the outcome of his discussions with the Society and Heath authorities is.
• Cllr Rowell was thanked for his efforts and for coming to tell us about them.
Policy diversity regarding cycle tracks
• There was no time to discuss this, so it will be put on the agenda for a future meeting.
The meeting then closed at 9 pm.
