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Ignored over one-way road
• I AM amazed at the way that Alexis Rowell, Lib Dem councillor for Belsize, has behaved over plans to make College Crescent one-way.
The previous Labour administration undertook a sham consultation last year, only asking parents at the local school.
The new council rightly decided it was wrong to ignore the thousands of local residents – many in Cllr Rowell’s own ward – who would be affected, and ordered the consultation extended to include local groups like Belsize Residents Association and the Heath and Hampstead Society.
Once local people had their say, Camden changed the decision to a decent compromise.
But now Cllr Rowell has decided to try to overturn all this, preferring to listen to the cabal of a few vociferous cyclists, rather than the people he was elected to represent.
He worked with the Labour opposition to declare it was wrong to extend the consultation to those affected and go back to the old Labour decision PLUS a cycle lane which Camden‚s officers say is likely to lead to accidents.
I thought everyone in the new administration was signed up to listening to residents, but it seems the Belsize LibDems are an exception.
When my Conservative colleagues and I represented Belsize ward, we would never have chosen to ignore the residents we were meant to be representing in favour of an ideological zeal.
JONNY BUCKNELL
Chamberlain Street, NW1 |
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