The latest figures show a 32% rise in cycle journeys using the lanes over five years with 486 trips now being made per day, reports James Cracknell

Cycleway 1 pictured in Edmonton Green — Cycleway 1 (C1) pictured in Edmonton Green

Cycle lanes in eastern Enfield are growing in popularity, the latest figures show.

The number of trips recorded by cycle counters in Edmonton Green show there’s been a 32% rise in journeys made on the segregated lanes since 2021, with most of this increase happening in the last two years.

Cycleway 1 (C1) follows the A1010 along Hertford Road and Fore Street for around 4.5 miles, connecting Freezywater in the north with Edmonton Green in the south. Last year, 177,507 cyclists were recorded using C1 in both directions. This equates to an average of 486 trips per day, up from 368 daily trips in 2021.

The segregated cycle route was installed at a cost of at least £8million – using money granted to Enfield Council under the ‘Mini Holland’ programme originally backed by then-London mayor Boris Johnson in 2014.

However, the Enfield Conservative group is now pledging to “remove the Hertford Road cycle lane” in its election manifesto ahead of next month’s poll, claiming that this would “improve road safety and traffic movement”.

Labour-run Enfield Council provided the latest cycling data for the C1 route following a request by the Dispatch.

Responding both to the Tory election pledge and the figures on how popular the cycle lanes are, Alex Atherton from Better Streets for Enfield said: “The cycle lanes on Hertford Road are increasingly well used. The number of journeys has increased by approximately a third in four years, and that was a pandemic affected 2021.

“Traffic is reduced when people have safe and viable alternatives, and cycle lanes are a fundamental part of that.

“There are good prospects that the network will be developed further in the years ahead, it makes no sense at all to remove a key route particularly when Transport for London [TfL] has made clear the council would have to pay back at least £8million.”

When asked for its response to the Conservative pledge, TfL stated last week that it would order any council wanting to remove cycling infrastructure it had funded to give the money back. This cost would come on top of the bill for physically removing the cycle lanes.

Asked where the money would come from, Tory group leader Alessandro Georgiou said it would not be found by cutting frontline services but instead via “savings from waste-of-money Labour projects”.

Council leader Ergin Erbil slammed the Conservative pledge and defended the cycle lanes, saying that they “cut air pollution, improve people’s health, and make our streets safer”.

Meanwhile, a poll conducted on Facebook by community group Love Your Doorstop suggests that removing the cycling lanes would be a vote winner. Asked if users of the social media site would “want the cycle lanes on Hertford Road ripped out or left?”, 78% of more than 400 poll respondents said they would want them ripped out.

Voters will head to the polls to decide which party they want to control Enfield Civic Centre on Thursday, 7^th May. The deadline to register to vote is Monday, 20^th April.

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