Havering Cyclists News

Greetings fellow cyclists! With the summer weather now with us at last, I hope you’ve still been able to get out on your bike in the fresh air riding for work, shopping or for some exercise but meanwhile, Havering Cyclists have still been campaigning and raising local cycling issues. Please read on for details.

LONDON FREECYCLE We restarted our annual feeder ride from Havering to Central London for the London Freecycle event after a two-year break for Covid. It was our biggest yet with 20+ riders from Havering joining with 20+ more from Barking. We were really lucky with the weather and it proved to be a lovely day out. Thanks to all those who supported us.

HAVERING CLIMATE COALITION The coalition recently formed from the local groups of Friends of the Earth, XR and the Quakers has made some progress and we are now in the process of setting up a “Green Hub” website as a signpost for borough residents on Green issues and a Green Forum with Havering Council to press for progress on its climate action plan.

REMEDIAL ACTIONS WITH HAVERING COUNCIL We have still been following up on our list of outstanding cycle safety issues with Havering council and have now resorted to raising formal complaints about three of the issues – the missing speed humps in Marshalls Drive, the faulty ramp at Rainham Marshes and the wrongly installed rumble strips. We have had assurances that they will be progressed and await further news.

LOCAL ELECTIONS 2022 Thanks to everybody who supported our “Five Asks” by emailing our prospective council leaders. We feel that the campaign went well and did our best to promote it through our website and social media and by distributing flyer cards. In the end, we succeeded in gaining commitments to support our asks from the leaders of both the Green party and the Labour Party. With the outcome being a hung council, it remains to be seen whether we will be able that we will turn that support into real changes in infrastructure, but we will certainly try.

We also had some success with using a tool called Beta Streets to develop visualisations of local roads which prompted lots of reaction and interest on social media like the view above of what Romford Main Road could look like.

MISSING SIGNAGE We have had the sign on LCN12 that was wrongly directing cyclists along London Road to the Brewery roundabout reset so that it now correctly points towards St Andrews Road. The sign that went missing on NCN136 at the junction of Elgin Avenue and Thurso Close has now been replaced along with signage from Colchester Road heading North.

If you notice any other missing signage in the borough, please report it using the council’s online tool: https://www.havering.gov.uk/info/20026/roads and let us know.

DOCTOR BIKE We expect to restart our monthly Dr Bike events in Hornchurch Country Park very shortly. Please get in touch if you are interested in either helping or getting your bike checked over.

KEEP IN TOUCH  Remember that you can sign up for news updates from our BLOG by completing the subscription box in the right-hand panel.  Please also get in touch to let us know you views on any of the above.  You can contact us through our CONTACTS PAGE, through Facebook (Havering cyclists)  or Twitter (@HaveringCyclist).

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