Sadiq Khan

• MAYOR of London Sadiq Khan has been an over-eager advocate of pedestrianising Oxford Street, reducing the bus service, and giving roads over to cyclists.

Westminster City Council stopped him from paving over Oxford Street because this would disenfranchise the elderly and the less abled.

The mayor saw this policy as his legacy rather than the fact that it is most likely to be his failure to deliver Crossrail.

However he did reduce the bus service and suspend bus routes, before lockdown, and now uses the current situation to close traffic lanes on the main thoroughfares, widen the pavements by “pedestrianising” parts of the main roads and creating “temporary” cycle lanes.

All this without consultation and without recognising that, as people return to their cars and not to London Transport, they will avoid these bottlenecks by cutting through the back streets.

In a single action he has encouraged the return of the unsafe pollution levels to residential streets.

There is also a plan for a cycle lane along Bayswater Road to Marble Arch when there is a perfectly good and fully functioning cycleway in Hyde Park.

It is unfortunate that the mayoral elections have been cancelled for a year and that Rory Stewart has withdrawn.

Mr Stewart appeared to be a contender, a man who would take action on behalf of Londoners rather than blame the government for the failings of the mayor’s office.

ETHAN POD
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