This morning TPA supporters joined up with the West London Residents Association and Guide Dogs for the Blind to protest against an expensive and potentially dangerous experiment about to take place in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
The protest was to oppose the plans for ‘street sharing’ in Exhibition Road but also to highlight how dangerous the plans already are in high traffic areas, such as the £330,000 redevelopment recently completed outside Sloane Square station.
Street sharing, as you can see from the pictures, is a development where there’s no pavement. For pedestrians to cross they have to eye down a car for it to stop as there are no traffic lights. As you can see, there’s barely any difference between the areas where cars will drive and where pedestrians are meant to wait. Just imagine the problems this causes for blind, partially sighted and the disabled. Look also where the bins are in the photo above – how is a motorist meant to stop for a child should they want to cross the road? So in our books, it’s an expensive policy that poses risks for the disadvantaged in our community.
Not one person today spoke in favour of the plans at all. That, however, bodes ill for the council’s plans to implement shared surface scheme on Exhibition Road, which will cost Kensington and Chelsea’s taxpayers £42 million in the very least.
So we were out leafleting and petitioning to bring this to the public’s attention as you will see from the photos. Thanks to all who turned up today, from as far away as Southend, as we had an excellent protest and made our point clearly. Of note, too, was the appearance of local councillor Victoria Borwick, who sits on the council as well as the London Assembly. Hopefully if we can get enough Kensington and Chelsea councillors to oppose the plans for Exhibition Road, we can save local residents millions of pounds in tax. If you oppose these plans as we do, please email Cllr. Daniel Moylan – who is promoting this scheme – to ask that he reconsider, save some money and pass it back to residents in a tax cut next year.