• I HAVE lived and worked in Bloomsbury for 37 years and I applaud the changes which have been made to make living, working, walking and cycling in the vicinity more pleasant. It’s been slow progress but generally common sense has prevailed.

Time has taken its toll on my joints and I have mobility problems. I gave up riding my two-wheeler several years ago. I never really felt safe with the motorised traffic taking precedence, getting frustrated at going nowhere fast, breathing in motorists’ fumes.

Now the tide is turning as we realise the harm we are doing to our health, planet, children and grandchildren. Walking is now more difficult and painful for me, so to travel around I use above-ground public transport.

I am not yet ready for a mobility scooter and want to stay mobile for as long as I can. So when cycle routes started being built, I bought myself an adapted recumbent trike. Joy! Independence!

The reports say that overall the number of cyclists, since the cycle lanes started being built, has remained the same. But I for one ride now far more often than I used to, as do quite a few of my neighbours, students at UCL and hospital staff at UCLH.

We may not all be residents all of the time, but we are road users and deserve a say in what constitutes our safety.

The next phase and plans for cycling and walking, especially around Bloomsbury Square and by Midland Road junction will further add to the overall improvements.

My reservations are just about the black cabs, which also serve as ambulances, carrying people to and from hospitals.

They should be able to move more freely around the area without adding an extra fiver or tenner to the tariff. The role they play supporting those of us with mobility problems or general decrepitude has been grossly underestimated.

Come on walkers and cyclists of Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia. Voice your opinion on changes. Public streets belong to everyone who uses them not just a few residents and businesses and certainly not to car drivers, dodgy “ambulances”, private-hire vehicles, lorries and white van men.

HELENA AZZAM
WC1