Some of the Royal Parks in London contain roads that go through the park, e.g. Regents Park, Hyde Park and Richmond Park. These roads are sometimes used by people visiting the park in cars/taxis, but are also sometimes used by vehicles crossing the park to get to the other side, as has been the case for very many years. Indeed the fact that they were designed for use by vehicles is given away by the fact that some of them are named “Carriage Roads”. But the Royal Parks organisation is now developing a “Movement Strategy” which will potentially limit the use by vehicles on park roads – for example by “commuters” as they call some users although how they differentiate between those and other vehicle users is not obvious.

The strategy includes a policy which states: “Park roads are primarily for the use of park visitors coming to the parks, not for commuters travelling through the parks. Over time, we will discourage the through-movement of motor vehicles within our parks”.

They make no mention of the use of some of the roads, such as the circular road around Regents Park, by cyclists who as the Evening Standard put it “use it for fitness training”. The volume of cyclists and vehicular traffic can now make it difficult for pedestrians to cross the road at certain locations, although crossing points have now been provided at some locations.

Greenwich Park is one example of limiting the use by “commuters” which has been in operation for some years. The through road is only open from 10 am to 4 pm, and not at weekends. Closing other parks to through traffic would be exceedingly inconvenient though for some users.

You can give your views on this subject by going to their consultation page here: https://tinyurl.com/yyzmr4q7 before the 14th July.

Roger Lawson

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