Tackling traffic was one of the issues raised as part of a consultation in early 2020 on The Royal Parks ‘Movement Strategy’.

The Friends of Regents Park and Primrose Hill, who have been concerned about reducing pollution and promoting health and wellbeing, wrote to respond to the consultation.

Mark Elliott, chair of the Friends group, said:

We wanted to express our strong support for the Movement Strategy, its vision, and the proposed steps to achieve the outcomes. But at the same time, we had several observations and suggestions to further enhance and strengthen it.”

More urgency

We said we would like to see a greater sense of urgency. Five years in our opinion is too long and so we wanted to suggest some changes and simple measures that could be implemented in a more timely fashion and we saw some opportunities for imaginative ‘quick wins’ which could be trialed in 2020.”

Finding creative and effective ways to reduce traffic flow while maintaining and improving access for people with low mobility.

We said we want to see more done to enforce existing controls and traffic restrictions to reduce commercial traffic in the park and to reduce traffic accidents and damage to park infrastructure, like recent damage to the Jubilee Gates on the Inner Circle and the gates at Park Square East.”

We would like to see an ANPR camera system installed in the park to help eliminate commercial vehicles and through traffic.We see no reason why steps should not be taken to eliminate through traffic completely and feel that the aim of ‘significantly reducing non-park, car-based traffic’ does not go far enough. We recognise that the use of ANPR to reduce through traffic would require a change to Park regulations and that this will be subject to an Act of Parliament but we would like to see an explicit statement that this will be sought as a matter of priority as soon as parliamentary conditions permit."

More environmentally friendly transport within the park

We supported their proposals for reducing operational vehicles within the parks and agreed this should extend to The Royal Parks’ service vehicles, concession deliveries and events and waste management. We see an opportunity for Royal Park’s contractors to use ‘cargo bikes’ to transport light goods between different areas of the park.”

See cycling as an opportunity rather than a challenge

Regent’s Park is famous for its sports facilities and we see cycling as a healthy option that should be welcomed and encouraged in positive ways. So we also said that efforts could be made to encourage more visitors to come to the parks by bicycle, for example by providing more cycle racks and cycle paths.”