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In October 2025, Camden opened a new engagement on their latest ideas for the Holborn Liveable Neighbourhood. This contains more details than the 2024 engagement: it describes a set of ‘projects’, one for each road in the area with a description and illustrations of before and after.
Full public consultation is planned for 2026 but in the meantime, Camden have been consulting on small projects in the area. They are calling these “STARter” projects and we have a web page here where we are listing them along with our responses.
Background
We have campaigned for safer cycling in the Holborn area since our early days and finally we are seeing some progress. This is a summary of the history of cycle-related issues in the Holborn area and of the plans and aspirations for the future.
The area discussed corresponds roughly to that shown in the latest Liveable Neighbourhood project area and covers the roads bounded by Gower Street to the west, Russell Square and Guilford Street to the north, Gray’s Inn Road to the east and Lincoln’s Inn fields to the south (see plan below). It includes the notorious Holborn gyratory and its approaches, where eight cyclists have been killed since 2008. We will also include Clerkenwell Road from Gray’s Inn Road to the borough boundary.
History of Cycle-Related Issues in Holborn Area
- 2007: Initial meetings on the “Bloomsbury Vision”.
- September 24 2008: Cyclist killed at the Southampton Row/Vernon Place junction.
- November 11 2009: Cyclist killed at the Southampton Row/Vernon Place junction.
- July 15 2013: Alan Neve killed on High Holborn east of the tube station, tipper truck.
- November 9 2013: Francis Golding killed on Vernon Place, left-turning motor vehicle at the Southampton Row junction. After this death, the coroner sent a ‘Prevention of future deaths’ report to Camden Council.
- January 2014: Bloomsbury Way bus lane opened to cyclists. Article here.
- January 2014: Talk to Camden Cyclists by Andrea Casalotti “Clerkenwell Boulevard”.
- March 2014: Talk to Camden officers by Jean Dollimore “Clerkenwell Boulevard”. Camden agree to sponsor visualisation work.
- June 2015: Completion of visualisation study by John Dales of Urban Movement. Presentation here.
- February 6 2015: Federica Baldassa killed on Vernon Place, left-turning motor vehicle at the Bloomsbury Square junction.
- April 2015: CCC publish Vision for the Theobalds – Clerkenwell cycle route. Web page by Jean Dollimore here.
- Spring 2018: CCC extend their ideas for a LN in Holborn. Talk at April meeting. Similar PDF sent to officers 0n 10th April and discussed at June Quarterly Meeting
- August 15 2018: Dr Peter Fisher killed on High Holborn near to Newton Street. He was the seventh cyclist to die in the capital in 2018.
- October 2018: Measures on Vernon Place, including left-turn ban, implemented. Article here.
- Late 2018: Princeton Street closed at Red Lion Square. Article here.
- March 2019: Initial plans for the Holborn Liveable Neighbourhood published. TfL allocate £10 million. Report here. Funding withdrawn in 2020.
- May 2020: Holborn Vision and Urban Strategy Consultation. CCC response here. refers to segregated tracks and protected junctions.
- Summer 2020: Further road closures round Red Lion Square create a mini-LTN. Report here.
- September 4 2021: Dr Marta Krawiec killed on Southampton Row. Left-turning HGV. Driver later found guilty of death by dangerous driving.
- October 2021: Interim safety measures at the junction of Southampton Row and Theobalds Road. Report here.
- November 2021: New proposals for permanent scheme at the junction of Southampton Row and Theobalds Road. Report here.
- March 1 2022: Shatha Ali killed on High Holborn opposite the tube station. HGV.
- August 2022: Permanent scheme at the junction of Southampton Row and Theobalds Road installed.
- October 2022: Camden publish proposals for High Holborn, Drake Street and Procter Street. Report here.
- December 2022: Proposals for High Holborn, Drake Street and Procter Street approved.
- June 2023: TfL release funds for work to restart on the Holborn Liveable Neighbourhood.
- September 2023: Holborn Starter projects (smaller projects) listed here.
- February 2024 Consultation on major improvements to the junctions at Gray’s Inn Road/Theobalds Road/Clerkenwell Road and at Clerkenwell Road/Rosebery Avenue together with segregated cycle lanes on Clerkenwell Road from Gray’s Inn Road to Farringdon Road.
- February 2024, the engagement process for the Holborn Liveable Neighbourhood opened on Commonplace.
- Aug 2024. Decision in favour of Clerkenwell Road scheme
- Sept 2024: Procter Street – High Holborn completed
Current Status
A new engagement on the details of the Liveable Neighbourhood scheme opened in October 2025. We discussed this at our November 2025 meeting. See this web page for our description and reaction. There are some changes since the 2024 engagement e.g.
- Great Queen Street was to have been considered for pedestrianisation in the 2024 plans but the 2025 proposal is for opposing one-way sections meeting near to the Masons’ Hall.
- Bloomsbury Way bus and cycle only between Bury Place and New Oxford Street; 2024 had this extending to Southampton Row.
- Cycle tracks in Bury Place rather than pedestrianisation.
We are currently concerned that Camden may be planning to mix buses and cycles on Bloomsbury Way (c.f Tottenham Court Road). We find this unacceptable as Bloomsbury Way is an extension of the planned protected route along Theobalds Road and Clerkenwell Road. See this presentation from 2018 which suggests a central cycle track on Bloomsbury Way.
We expect work to start on the Clerkenwell Road cycle lanes scheme early in 2026.
The earlier Starter Projects are being implemented while new ones have been consulted on. See this post for details.
The improvements at the two danger junctions (Southampton Row and Theobalds Road and High Holborn, Drake Street and Procter Street) are complete. But there are concerns about both of them:
- On the Theobalds Road WB approach to Southampton Row, cycles and buses share a 3m wide lane and although WB traffic is released before EB traffic cyclists can’t always get through before the latter are released
- On the High Holborn approach to Southampton Row, cyclists are in theory released a sufficient time before motors to enable them to get to the junction first. This fails if the motor traffic doesn’t all get through on a single stage of the signals or if they have stopped and then started again in this section