Each month, we email a bulletin to everyone who has signed up on this site. Below is the mailout that we sent in December 2019. If you like it, please sign up on our Get Involved section - you will be showing your support for our work and you will receive our free monthly bulletins a month before they appear here. Have a look at our first bulletin to find out more about how RPC was formed and why we are progressing the idea of reducing traffic in the park by charging for shortcut journeys.
BRAND NEWS
Shove over, Kylie Jenner! Get out the way, Ariana Grande! You gotta go, Cristiano Ronaldo! There’s a new influencer in town - and the name of this upstart brand is Richmond Park Cyclists!
The official confirmation is there in black and white on page 14 of The Royal Parks’ ten-year Management Plan, where the organisation to which you proudly subscribe is acknowledged as one of the five stakeholder groups that are “influences” on how Richmond Park is managed. Cheers, TRP!
Hopefully, this opening item comes across as it is intended: a little pat on our backs, rather than an orgy of self-congratulation. In a year which has seen this busy little bulletin report on the progress of the Movement Strategy, the now-abated spate of bike thefts by Colicci, Richmond councillors’ move to have a borough-wide 20mph limit plus a whole lot more, it is satisfying to achieve a small, official recognition of our efforts from the people who run the park. So thank you to all the cycling groups we communicate with, our sponsors - and, of course, chiefly yourselves for subscribing.
We are taking a break for Christmas, so this bumper edition will have to tide you over until the end of January. Without further ado, here is an explanation of the whopping 154-page Management Plan, crunched down to four cycling-related tidbits...
SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN
The Royal Parks’ Management Plan sets out how the challenges of increased visitor numbers and the stewardship of the park’s environment will be met from now until 2029. Cycling, public transport and walking will remain the favoured and prioritised means of accessing the park.
You can read the document for yourself here. Before you dive in, here are the key elements related to cycling that we have managed to locate:
Visitor numbers have doubled in a decade and are up four-fold compared to 25 years ago. TRP notes that on “sunny weekends and evenings [...] the park feels it is becoming overrun” (p15). It will “no longer promote ever-increasing levels of access without being aware of the negative consequences” and aims to “stabilise visitor numbers at around 2018 levels” (p129).
There has been an “increase in tensions between all users” caused by the “volume of users and through traffic” (p55). This has led to “increasing reports of conflicts between road users” (p29).
The Movement Strategy to determine “appropriate use of [the] road and cycling network” in Richmond Park is mentioned on p143 on a list of 41 key projects. The strategy, which is widely expected to lead to improvements for cycling in the park, is defined as a long-term project in the plan: the graphic at the end of its entry indicates it will be implemented in five years’ time and will take two-and-a-half years to complete. But as our regular subscribers already know, the first phase of The Royal Parks’ consultation process for all its green spaces has already ended and evidence-based proposals should be finalised and adopted in Richmond Park in the next couple of months. Does this mean that the much longer timescale in the plan is out of date, or that a small number of changes will be coming soon, with the rest delivered in a few years’ time? No doubt TRP will clarify this in the next round of consultation.
Amazingly, the cafe at Roehampton Gate - an institution for almost everyone who rides in Richmond Park - was introduced in 2004 only as a temporary facility! TRP says it now “sits uneasily in the centre of the car park”. There are plans to “reroute the road” around the car park, “reduce the amount of tarmac, create more parkland and offer park access from the Roehampton estate”. The only snag? It needs to find “a funding source” first (p87).
The Management Plan is a mine of information about the park, so have a read - and let us know if you have spotted anything interesting that we may have missed.
POLL POSITION
All of you who took part in the Movement Strategy’s online poll will have received some great news in your inbox earlier this month as TRP’s transport and access boss Mat Bonomi revealed what the 6,956 respondents have said (and if you weren’t one of them, you can have a gander at the figures here).
Overall, 78 per cent agreed TRP should “discourage the through-movement of commuting motor vehicles”. Among those who said they were cyclists, 87 per cent supported the reduction of through-traffic. The need for additional cycling infrastructure “featured heavily” among the 1,800 comments received.
The results of the survey cover all eight of The Royal Parks’ green spaces, although the Standard reported that driving in Richmond Park “sparked the biggest response”. Data specific to Richmond Park should be available when TRP publishes its draft strategy early next year, and there will be further consultation before the strategy is adopted.
As long-standing subscribers know, we have been exploring the concept of Intelligent Road Charging with stakeholders for some time. So far, a charge for shortcut journeys through the park with some possible exemptions is the only potential solution that allows the gates to stay open (thereby keeping the park accessible to all user groups) and does not require heavy infrastructure. And we are encouraged by Mat’s comments to the Standard: “The survey is just one piece of the decision-making matrix but it provides us with a really great starting point and a great mandate to be a little more courageous and think outside the box.”
But there is still some way to go before it is properly considered. We attended the recent Stakeholders’ Breakfast, and some of those present were concerned that the next phase of consultation would include IRC. Mat assured them that TRP will carefully consider any proposal that impacts traffic movement outside the park. We are confident that the advantages of IRC will become apparent - and, of course, we will let you know about any further developments next year.
FEELING THE PINCH
We have written to The Royal Parks about eroded parts of the Tamsin Trail following feedback from our subscribers. The original path significantly narrows in parts, making it effectively one-way. In this situation, cyclists would normally give way to pedestrians but confusion with oncoming users at pinch points is a safety risk. We will let you know what TRP has to say about a programme of repairs and restoration.
PARK AND DONATE
Richmond Park Cyclists enjoys good relations with The Royal Parks. If you value the charity’s work in maintaining the environment in which you cycle and also allowing us to sit on the meetings it has with stakeholders, why not show your appreciation by making a donation? TRP has installed card machines close to the car parks where you can donate any amount of your choosing. The Government’s grant to TRP will be reduced to a small fraction of its current amount as the organisation has become a registered charity, so anything you donate would make a difference.
PLENTY IN ’20
By the time the next bulletin is out, we hope to have set up a meeting with the police to find out why the number of motorists pulled over for speeding in the park (as revealed in last month’s update) appear to be quite low. Looking ahead to the long-term, we are exploring the possibility of running a car-free day in the park next year, getting a noticeboard put up outside Colicci dedicated to cycling news relevant to the park, and finding the funding to install a track pump outside the cafe. As ever, please let us know about any ideas you have to make Richmond Park an even better place to ride your bike in 2020.
TIME TO PLAY
We end this year with a happy postscript concerning the attempt to alleviate traffic outside Kingston Gate by making some of the nearby roads one-way. As reported in April’s bulletin, the idea was voted down by residents - but the section of King’s Road from the gate to Park Road was closed off on Friday for children to play in.
A local dad out with his kids told us it is part of Kingston Council’s play streets initiative. The section of road is shut on the last Friday of the month between 3.30pm and 6pm, so please bear this in mind if you are going into the park or leaving it around this time. And if you like the idea, stop to tell the parents like we did!
SEE YOU NEXT YEAR...
Thank you for allowing us to pop into your inbox. As ever, please share our newsletter with your cycling friends - and if they like what they read, encourage them to sign up to our mailing list too. The more subscribers we have, the bigger our voice. The next bulletin will be out at the end of January.
Have a great Christmas and New Year!
Richmond Park Cyclists
website: richmondparkcyclists.org
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