Green Party London Assembly Member Darren Johnson AM met with local Green Party members, pedestrians and cyclists at one of north London’s most dangerous junctions to highlight repeated delays to safety improvement works there. 17 cyclists were killed or seriously injured on the roundabout between 1987 and 2012 and The Green Party is calling for urgent action.
In 2004, there was a public consultation on the draft planning framework for Highbury & Islington Station and Highbury Corner. The framework was adopted by Islington council as Supplementary Planning Guidance in July of that year and £327,309 of public money was then spent on a public consultation in 2007 which was then not acted on.
TfL stated last year that they were preparing the business case to secure approval and funding and that the gyratory would be overhauled after Highbury and Islington station had been improved. A consultation on the works was due to begin in Spring 2014 but has not yet happened and TfL’s latest proposals for the junction are currently at the planning stage.
Cllr Caroline Russell said “Islington residents deserve better. With the completion of the overground network, Highbury Corner is now a public transport gateway to Islington and the traffic dominated roundabout is hardly a fitting welcome to our borough. Along with many other residents I have contributed to stakeholder consultations over the last ten years. The mayor needs to get going and sort this out, sitting on these consultations for years without acting is just not good enough.”
Darren Johnson AM said “Visiting the roundabout and seeing for myself the crowded pavements, slow two stage crossings and lack of space for cycling has convinced me that a redesign is urgently needed to make Highbury Corner work better both as a public transport interchange and as a gateway to Islington. I will be pressing the Mayor to move this forward quickly so that residents can benefit from a safer more convenient road layout and a more people-friendly public realm.”
