Lambeth council has marked roads in Streatham Wells with new signage for its Peckham to Streatham “healthy route”, which is intended to give cyclists a low-traffic alternative to main roads.

The plan has been in the works for years, although it has so far barely featured in Streatham’s local politics, and the early stages – from Brockwell Park to the A205 South Circular – are already complete.

But the next stages of the route, which is eventually supposed to reach the southernmost frontier of Lambeth, at the border of Streatham and Norbury, should be attracting much more attention.

That’s because the design seems to rely on the reinstatement of the Streatham Wells LTN, which Lambeth was forced to suspend two years ago, after it had a disastrous impact on transport across Streatham, and beyond.

Just keep going

And on top of that, Lambeth’s cycling-focused planners seem to be answering the tricky question – how do you get bikes around the common, without forcing them onto the main roads? – with a simple but controversial answer: you just send them straight across the middle of it.

The full north-to-south plan for Cycleway 48, as it’s signed, isn’t a secret. Lambeth council officers published the map nearly a year ago, and Neil Salt (as chair of community forum Streatham Action’s transport group) got hold of an emailed copy from another source, and wrote about it in Heart Streatham magazine.

But when StreathamStuff raised the issue less than a year ago, at last summer’s Friends of Streatham Common AGM, Lambeth deputy leader Danny Adilypour (a Labour councillor for the Streatham Common and Vale ward) insisted the idea must have been TfL’s.

It wasn’t a Lambeth Labour plan, he said, adding that “the council’s line on this is that the path [across the common] isn’t suitable for cycling”.

Caroline Hewitt, chair of local charity Friends of Streatham Common, points to council byelaws that forbid cycling across the common, but notes that bikes are tolerated, as long as cyclists give way to pedestrians. “I wouldn’t want to send cyclists away, but they must give way,” she said at the AGM.

FoSC has also been pushing the council to install markings on the common’s paths to make that clear to cyclists, she says. But the charity doesn’t have a specific view on Cycleway 48 bisecting the common, saying it’s been told by Labour councillors and council staff that, again, there isn’t a plan for it to do so.

“No person shall without reasonable excuse ride a cycle in the ground except in any part of the ground where there is a right of way for cycles or a designated route for cycling," the byelaws say, although the council has also, confusingly, said in response to a Freedom of Information request that cycling is permitted on the paths across the common.

Alternative routes?

The new “wayfinding” was originally supposed to be installed last summer. It directs cyclists from the junction of Leigham Court Road and Leigham Avenue – which was remodelled to be part of the route a couple of years ago – and through the side streets of Streatham Wells.

So far, so good. Many of the streets in Streatham Wells are almost empty of traffic, almost all of the time. The new signage might encourage a few cyclists to take this scenic route, rather than sticking to the main roads, but nothing much has changed.

But from there, on Sunnyhill Road outside the primary school, the route is supposed to turn right into Valley Road, and continue to the T-junction with Streatham Common North, facing the common.

This section was originally part of the same stage as the rest of Streatham Wells. But it’s now listed as a separate “future” stage, because without an LTN in place, it’s much too busy to qualify as healthy.

So what next – are there any alternatives, to building a trans-common e-bike highway? Is there a way of ejecting cyclists into the borough of Croydon, without sending them onto the “unhealthy” main roads?

Desire lines

FoSC suggested in last year’s Heart Streatham article that a dedicated cycle route would have to turn left out of Valley Road, to go via the section of Streatham Common South that was blocked off some years ago, past the common’s paddling pool.

But that is an unattractive detour of nearly 400 metres, and with an extra climb up the hill of 15 metres, compared with the obvious “desire lines” straight across the common. Many cyclists would, surely, be reluctant to use it.

And because it requires cycling up Streatham Common North, it runs into the same problem as the Valley Road section itself – too busy, and too much “road danger” for it to be “healthy”.

Lambeth’s original qualifications for a “healthy” route were that peak-hour traffic flows needed to be under 200 vehicles per hour. But Valley Road can see in excess of 1,000 vehicles per hour.

And Streatham Common North, as the boundary road for any reinstated LTN, is busier still, and doomed to stay that way. The now-suspended LTN trial pushed more traffic onto it, causing build-ups of traffic and plenty of complaints from cyclists that it had become much more dangerous.

Without cutting traffic levels, segregated cycle lanes would have to be installed on these roads, to maintain the route’s healthiness. That seems highly unlikely to happen, given that roadspace is tight and Lambeth’s finances are even tighter.

Lambeth may in fact have quietly dropped those very strict vehicles-per-hour requirements – which would technically also prevent even Sunnyhill Road from being part of C48. Average peak-time traffic levels on the road exceeded 300 in 2021, when the council did its pre-LTN “baseline” traffic survey.

A link to the requirements from a Lambeth website is now broken, so that the most recent reference that StreathamStuff could find was also from 2021.

But any changes to healthy route qualifying standards can’t help Valley Road, whose traffic has been the target of local campaigners for several years.

A spot survey conducted by StreathamStuff at 4pm on Saturday afternoon counted 189 vehicles passing through the Valley Road roundabout in 15 minutes – a rate of 756 vehicles per hour. It also included just two bikes and two e-scooters.

Lambeth and TfL, a Labour collaboration

In fact it’s quite clear – despite councillors’ protestations – that this scheme, like other “healthy route” cycling schemes, is very much a joint venture between the council and Transport for London.

It’s intended to tie into and complement TfL’s ongoing work to “transform” the A23 at Streatham Hill, which will see reduced lanes for vehicles and the installation of a separate two-way cycle lane.

A 2024 letter from TfL to Streatham Action says: “We are working with Lambeth Council to deliver a cycle route north from Streatham Hill to Peckham. This route is planned for completion this financial year. We have also identified a potential future cycle corridor which could link Streatham to Croydon on borough roads. This route is at an early stage of definition.”

So it may well be true that TfL initially drew up the plans – but it seems that Lambeth, unsurprisingly, has since adopted them. Lambeth is clear that these “strategic” cycleways are a collaboration between itself and TfL, and the Labour-run council is keen to align itself and its policies with Labour London Mayor Sadiq Khan, not least to attract funding for investment in schemes just like C48.

Question time

Both Labour and the opposition LibDems should now have questions to answer, in the run-up to local elections in May, on whether they support this cycle scheme, and the baggage that seems to come along with it.

It’s Labour that has drawn up and apparently endorsed the plan, which was originally intended to dovetail perfectly with the Streatham Wells LTN. The party’s keenness to promote cycling and walking schemes, and to restrict and tax car use, is central to its policies.

But the LibDems are also saying on their campaign leaflets that they want to “boost bikes and walking”, and calling for “investment in local cycling infrastructure, so cycling around and through Streatham is safer”.

And the Greens are of course all in favour of cyling infrastructure, and measures to reduce private vehicle use. With the Conservatives and Reform thought unlikely to feature much in the upcoming local elections, that means all the prominent local parties are – on paper – big fans of cycling and cycling schemes. They’re cheap, they’re healthy, they’re environmentally-friendly – what’s not to like?

But with only two months to go now till voting on 7th May, perhaps it’s time for our candidates to start checking more carefully, what exactly it is that they’re supporting – so that small plans carried out today, with some apparently good intentions and a pot of paint, aren’t going to bring unwanted and unpopular consequences in a few years’ time.

Matters Arising (StreathamStuff will report back!):

Ask Lambeth to confirm that the published map is still their plan; and ask whether the council has any alternative plans, to get the cycleway around the common or to end the cycleway in Streatham Wells

Ask election candidates (Labour, LibDem and Green) for both affected wards – Streatham Wells and Streatham Common and Vale – whether they think Valley Road should be closed to through-traffic for the cycleway, and whether the cycleway should run across the common; and whether they have any alternative suggestions