Sustainable Community and Living Streets

As local volunteer chair, referred by headquarters, I met with Camden Transport Planner Jacqueline Saunders yesterday to introduce Living Streets Kings Cross*. We discussed better working together and proposed to do four things:

1. Group members and 'street users' of Kings Cross might find an elected Champion for Living Streets (such as Cr. Sue Vincent in Camden and a counterpart in Islington) - to lobby and to promote 'safe, attractive, enjoyable streets where people want to walk' - so that the Champion can guide officers on behalf of all 'street users' of Kings Cross.

2. Living Streets Kings Cross Group to give feedback on our issues and areas of interest, as identified to date (pedestrian permeability, safety etc from this blog - see below)

3. To give our group's input and be involved in consultations about streets in the future (Such as the joint Islington-Camden Brecknock Road study coming in November) - and for this to be visible to us, with a committment that our comments will be addressed transparently.

4. To give input to the Camden Local Implementation Plan (LIP) of the Sustainable Community Strategy, and especially Camden's 3 year delivery plans for 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14; and to monitor these.

Would you like to be involved? Please read further and comment.

We discussed the improvement programmes funded under the 2005-2011 plan (LIP), including walking, cycling, 20mph zones, bus priority etc (previously 23 projects). Report pending.

The rather different new plan (LIP) for 2011-2031 which would be funded at about 4 million, a small fraction of the previous budget. The new LIP 2011 would comprise only two programmes;

1. - smarter travel (promoting walking and cycling, awareness, road safety training etc)

2. - corridors and neighbourhoods (traffic calming and street environment schemes etc.)

One of the six identified physical areas for development in Camden, Kings Cross was not yet 'prioritised', but as it was identified in the new Local Development Framework for planning, we would be able to be involved in developing the plan for 2012-13 and 2013-14.

I agreed to review the issues we have previous raised (see below) and to send Jacqueline more information about how Living Streets can assist her department's work with auditing, local community engagement etc., as it has done in the past, as follows:

Webpage: http://www.livingstreets.org.uk/index.php/expert-help/community-street-audits/

Flyer: http://www.livingstreets.org.uk/index.php/tools/download.php?file=resources/communitystreetaudits.pdf
Contact person: annabel.swanston@livingstreets.org.uk

Issues raised by Living Streets Kings Cross 2008-2010

1. Access through Kings Cross Station (aka Battlebridge) in the medium to long term via Camden Council and Islington Council (Herman T suggests a note is being produced at Islington) Clarifying London borough and national constituency boundaries ie Kings Cross Station not being in Frank Dobson's national constituency (Susanne G) Agreed to raise awareness of the ongoing Battlebridge campaign. (more, esp. page 8) 4 June 2009

2. Twenty's Plenty, the campaign to introduce a general 20mph speed limit on borough roads, provisionally adopted in Islington, we will ask Camden to follow at a Bloomsbury area forum on 1 July (Greg C) and Hantilowes (Suzanne G). 4 June 2009

3. Safety at Night - Walking Audit

Based on the successful work with Nido's Eco-Fair (22 Apr 2009) with Anup P and Sara G, who arranged to hosting the LS meeting at 200 Pentonville Road -Nido, we followed the meeting at 6.30pm with a guided walk and walking audit for local people and students. Living Streets people guided the walk (to Thornhill Bridge and the Regents Canal, via Kings Place, Crinan Street, Railway Street, via Regent Quarter to St Chads Place for a drink) and established a local walk also suitable for future summer school students. Those attending identified lighting issues, pavement widths, percieved security concerns, roads such as the A501 presenting barriers to local walking, but felt the area had potential to develop 'safer more enjoyable streets where people want to walk'. 4 June 2009

Members, please add to this list, or comment!

Greg, chair

(*photo from 2009 http://www.camden.gov.uk/ccm/navigation/council-and-democracy/plans-and-policies/corporate-plan/ as a suitable 'sustainable community' poster in the meeting area was not yet available)

Direct requests for actions for 'safer more enjoyable streets in Kings Cross' (Camden, Islington or Transport for London)

Note: Sophie T. - through KXLE and our Facebook group - has provided a lot of the background and offered to help link with Islington. She has made the 2008 walking audit available as a .pdf too (also at right) and has just written afresh about the gyratory...