Havering Cyclists News

Season’s greetings fellow cyclist!

With the winter weather now properly upon us, I hope you’ve still been able to get out on your bike in the fresh air riding for work, Christmas shopping or for some exercise but meanwhile, Havering Cyclists have still been campaigning and raising local cycling issues. Please read on for details.

REMEDIAL ACTIONS WITH HAVERING COUNCIL

We have been following up on our list of outstanding cycle safety issues with Havering council and while we have had updates we are still waiting for details of when each of them will be resolved. The list includes including rumble strips, action on Marsh Way and missing speed humps.

WATERLOO ESTATE

The redevelopment of the Waterloo Estate has caused LCN12 from Romford towards Chadwell Heath to be diverted. Sadly, the route the estate closed at the end of August but the properly signed diversion has only just been put in place (in the second week of December). Even this has taken repeated representations by us to Havering council to have the correct signs shown in places where users have a decent chance of seeing them but we are now happy with the result.

HAVERING PROTEST RIDE

Our anniversary protest ride with Havering XR on the 11th September was well supported and was covered in local media. As a follow up, we had another meeting with council leader Damian White where he again expressed his view that an outer London Borough like Havering cannot afford to give up road space to bikes because so many people depend on their cars. Nobody was asking for this but he did commit to having the planning team look into earlier plans for six “Quietways”. We will keeep you posted.

HAVERING CLIMATE ACTION PLAN

We were quite disappointed to see the very limited scope of Havering’s belated climate action plan and have joined forces with local groups from Friends of the Earth, XR and the Quakers to form the “Havering Climate Coalition” to call for a more meaningful plan. We were able to put our points to the council meeting of 7th December but sadly the administration chose not even to respond to our points but just cut directly to a vote which ignored them. The efforts will continue.

COULD YOU BE A CLIMATE CHAMPION FOR HAVERING?

The London Cycling Campaign has a number of volunteers posts to fill in the role of Climate Safe Street Champions for each borough. They have candidates for most boroughs but none as yet for Havering. Would you be interested in taking this on?

The minimum time commitment would be three evenings per month.

Click HERE for more details.

LOCAL ELECTIONS 2022

We are working on our “Five Asks” that we will put to all the prospective candidates for the local elections next May. It will be a fine balance between asks which are achievable and those which would be the most useful to local cyclists. Please get in touch if you have any ideas.

CYCLE BUDDIES SCHEME

Our buddying scheme has been operating for some months now and a number of new riders have already been helped. If you or anybody that you know would be interested in becoming either a Helper Buddy or a New Rider Buddy, please check our website at https://www.haveringcyclists.org/cycle-buddies/ .

A CYCLING CHARTER FOR HAVERING

Our plans to launch the charter were scuppered by the pandemic but we are now rebuilding the momentum. Our plan is still to sign up as many local organisations as we can before engaging with the public so if you have any business or community contacts that we could approach to further this, please get in touch and you can see the charter and sign up at www.haveringcyclingcharter.org.

EVENTS

The easing of lockdown meant that we were able to restart our monthly Dr Bike events in Hornchurch Country Park during the summer which proved very popular and we were pleased to help lots of cyclists with their mechanical concerns.

KEEP IN TOUCH 

Remember that you can sign up for news updates from our blog at https://www.haveringcyclists.org/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 website www.haveringcyclists.org, through Facebook (Havering cyclists)  or Twitter (@HaveringCyclist)

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