On Saturday 18th November London Cycling Campaign ran a Community Skills Summit and quite a few Enfield members were present. Adrian Day ECC Co-ordinator and David Hilliard one of our infrastructure leads report on the day.

London Cycling Campaign’s annual conference for campaigners was a great event for anyone who wants better and safer cycling (and indeed better and safer wheeling and walking). Several of us from Better Streets went along to learn how we can be more effective in our campaigning. With some great speakers and over 150 delegates, the conference’s focus was on achieving commitment from Council leaders and relevant cabinet members to make active travel safer and easier. Without the political will to improve cycling in a borough its unlikely much will happen.

Various workshops looked at the key challenges campaigners face. One very useful session focussed on understanding your leaders’ motivations and interests. Even if a Council leader isn’t directly interested in active travel they may have other interests that are aligned – such as reducing pollution-related asthma amongst children or increasing footfall in town centres. Here in Enfield a key priority is increasing the housing stock – but there is a lack of land for building. One solution is to build housing on car parks – which in turn mandates that the Council takes action to ensure people are encouraged to travel by walking, cycling and public transport rather than drive.   The conference is held annually and I can thoroughly recommend you attend in 2024. You don’t have to be a member of London Cycling Campaign but you can join here:

https://membership.lcc.org.uk/join-lcc

Adrian day – Enfield cycle campaign/ bsfe co-ordinator

London Cycling Campaign has released a new interactive map showing where London’s most dangerous junctions are. The map uses the latest ‘Stats19’ emergency services response data for 2018-2022.

The map shows that in Enfield the most dangerous junction for cycling is Angel Corner, Edmonton with five collisions involving bikes and vehicles in the past five years.

Watch Video of Angel Corner here

The Enfield branch of the London Cycling Campaign invite you to the LCC Community Skills Summit.

Would you like to help make Enfield better for cycling, walking and wheeling? Join campaigners from all over London on Saturday, 18 November for a free day of talks, workshops and networking that will give you the skills and inspiration you need to get our council moving on active travel. You do not need to be a member of LCC to attend.

Time: 9:30AM – 5PM
Where: University of East London Docklands, E16 2RD

This is a guest report by a member of the local group Safer Streets for Winchmore Hill. Bruce Tofield attended the meeting held on 3 October 2023, at Wheatsheaf Hall, Main Street.

The meeting had been suggested by Joy Cowley-Smith of Enfield Matters and was organised by Feryal Clark, M.P. for Enfield North, who chaired the meeting.

My observations

There is clearly great anger among residents both at the very loud noise including explosions from large numbers of cars that gather to race and display and that have specially modified exhausts, and also at the apparent failure of police and Enfield to solve the problem over many years.  The room was full and the many remarks from the floor were consistent in noting the repeated disturbance for hours on end to people’s sleep and mental health (children in particular) and to animals (dogs especially) and also the frustration that the problem had been getting worse and more frequent in recent years.  The meeting went on for two hours and would almost certainly have continued for a lot longer had it not been brought to a close.

New reports show positive progress for Enfield’s Quieter Neighbourhoods

A traffic monitoring report for each of Enfield’s completed Quieter Neighbourhoods was published by Enfield Council in August 2023. They are presented as a set of slides and available here at Bowes and Fox Lane.

The monitoring took place in late November/early December 2022 and followed exercises carried out in September 2021 after the initial implementation of each scheme.

Overall

• There is positive news in terms of traffic reduction in both QNs. Fox Lane is more positive in terms of boundary roads in particular, which carry the most traffic. 
• Further monitoring will take place on some roads, named in each report. Other ‘mitigation’ may follow depending on the outcomes.
• There are limits to the extent to which this exercise is directly comparable to the one in 2021. 

For more information on the impact of schemes in London to date see this extensive 2023 study.

Join us on Saturday 16th September for this leisurely 30-mile cycle ride from Wood Green Common, exploring some of Enfield’s interesting architecture

This is a safely marshalled, leisurely group cycle ride. We will set off at 10am from Barratt Gardens, Station Road, London N22 6UU (next to Wood Green Common), heading north via several places of architectural interest in Enfield – many with cycle-friendly features. We will stop for lunch and refreshments en route, returning between 3 and 4pm to Wood Green Common.

Please book here to reserve your place via the Eventbrite page.

We’ve got a couple of feeder rides for the RideLondon FreeCycle. The FreeCycle is an amazing day out on a very large traffic-free loop around London.

The two set-off points are:

The Fox, 413 Green Lanes, Palmers Green N13 4JD.

The Cycle Hub, Edmonton Green station, The Broadway, Edmonton N9 7AA*

*if this post code isn’t valid on your satnav/phone N9 9DX will get you to an adjacent cafe.

Both the Palmers Green and Edmonton feeder rides start promptly at 9am and return at 3pm. The Palmers Green ride will join with Haringey CC group and go south to Bank; the Edmonton ride will go south down the Lea Valley park and then largely on protected cycle lanes to Bank. The leaders and marshals are all London Cycle Campaign trained. Register for the Freecycle AND Led Rides here: https://www.ridelondon.co.uk/our-rides/ridelondon-freecycle If you want to leave from Palmers Green this is under Enfield 2 when you register.

Have you recently been on one of our rides and seen the ride leaders and marshals in action? If you think it looks like fun and a challenge, maybe you would like you like to help lead or marshal one of our bike rides – perhaps one of the two feeder rides to Ride London Freecycle on the 28th May? Why not sign up to ride leader or marshal training? London Cycle Campaign are running two free courses at Enfield’s Council offices. Sign-up here LCC Events