Plans to reroute C9 across the pavement in Chiswick revived ‘for safety reasons’

Our Lady of Grace Roman Catholic Church on Chiswick High Road; Hounslow Council plans to reroute the cycle lane so it crosses the pavement at the first tree

Hounslow Cabinet decides to proceed with a C9 design halted by Covid, citing four accidents over the past four years

Transport for London and Hounslow Council have revived plans to reroute part of the cycle lane on Chiswick High Road across the pavement west of the Catholic church, as far as Heathfield Terrace. The rerouted cycle lane will effectively cut off the corner, separating it completely from road traffic by a strip of pavement.

Hounslow Cabinet formally accepted £1,320k funding from TfL to do the work at the Cabinet meeting on 8 September.

A spokesperson for Hounslow Council told The Chiswick Calendar:

“Our current proposal for Chiswick High Road/Heathfield Terrace, including Duke’s Avenue, is in response to the poor safety record at this location. The Council has a statutory duty to promote road safety and to take action where there is a need to make our roads safer”.

There have been four personal injury accidents over the past four years, giving rise to safety concerns which the Council says it needs to address.

The wide pavement between Duke’s Avenue and Heathfield Terrace 

The pre-Covid plan resurfaces

The plan they are now putting forward is very similar to one initially agreed with Transport for London seven years ago, signed off by Hounslow Cabinet meetings in 2019 and again in 2023, but this part of C9 was not built as planned because of Covid.

The cycle lane was ‘temporarily’ routed in the main carriageway, requiring eastbound traffic lanes on Chiswick High Road to be reduced from two to one to make room for it. The intention always was to use some of the pavement area for C9 because it is so wide along there.

The junction of Heathfield Terrace and Chiswick High Road is a complicated one, with cyclists joining the cycle lane from the west and the south west and eastbound vehicle traffic either turning left from the High Road or going straight on from a single lane.

Although the junction forms part of the Cycleway 9 route, the Council says the current proposals have been developed specifically to address the safety issues that have been highlighted recently.

The redesign is also intended to improve traffic flow in the High Road by reinstating two lanes on the eastbound approach to Heathfield Terrace, including the introduction of a dedicated left-turn lane.

Junction of Heathfield Terrace and Chiswick High Road, where currently there is one westbound lane for traffic going straight on and traffic turning left from the High Road into Heathfield Terrace

Decision reignites old battles over the cycle lane

The introduction of the cycle lane was highly contentious and controversial, splitting the community.

The original plan to route it across the pavement all the way from Duke’s Avenue to Heathfield Terrace was famously decribed by the parish priest at Our Lady of Grace Roman Catholic Church on the corner of Duke’s Avenue and Chiswick High Road as having the potential to do more damage to the Church than the Luftwaffe had done during the Second World War when it was damaged by a bomb.

The Church uses the pavement outside its main door as access for weddings and funerals and as a place for people to congregate before and after services.

The design was changed from the initial 2017 proposal to accommodate the Church’s objections. Plans were agreed in 2019 with Our Lady of Grace for the cycle lane to cut across the pavement just west of the Church, instead of directly in front of it, and had it not been for Covid it would have been built like that.

In the revised design C9 will cut across the pavement outside in front of the Priest’s House on Chiswick High Road, leaving the area in front of Our Lady of Grace largely as it is.

The pavement outside the church, showing the first tree around which the cycle lane will be diverted

The revised design retains the mature tree, with the eastbound and westbound cycle lanes passing on either side of it. The cycle lane then rejoins the road on Heathfield Terrace.

The Council told The Chiswick Calendar they also have another reason for doing this now:

“Alongside the collision history, we are also aware of concerns about cyclists riding on the pavement at this location, which can create unsafe conditions for pedestrians and other vulnerable road users.”

The Council says it is consulting businesses and premises ‘within the scheme area’, having held two full public consultations before, but Cllr Joanna Biddolph, who has always opposed the cycle lane, is campaigning for there to be another full consultation.

A cyclist using the pavement to cut the corner from Heathfield Terrace to join the cycle lane

Catholic Church mobilises opposition

Canon Michael Dunne is no longer the parish priest, having been promoted to become Vicar General of the Diocese of Westminster in July, but the Church is mobilising its congregation to oppose the change.

This week’s Church newsletter carried an item headlined:

‘RENEWED CYCLEWAY 9 THREAT TO PAVEMENT IN FRONT OF CHURCH’, saying:

‘Chiswick Councillor Joanna Biddolph has thankfully drawn attention to TfL/Hounslow Council proposals for C9 to mount the pavement at the first tree after Duke’s Avenue just passed (sic) the main doors of the church but before the presbytery.

‘She has rightly urged the Council that a full public consultation must be held, not least because of the huge local opposition to still worse proposals seven years ago.

‘To endorse, complain or at least insist on a full public consultation about the proposals which would impede all pedestrians as well as parishioners gathering on the pavement before and after Mass, and funerals and processions, please email the Council’s cabinet member with oversight and responsibility: salman.shaheen@hounslow.gov.uk asking for a consultation’.

Hounslow Council says the works will include:

‘A number of improvements including new high-quality footway paving, carriageway resurfacing and refreshed road markings. It will also improve the separation between cycle and pedestrian areas, with enhanced crossing facilities at the Duke Avenue junction’.

Another cyclist on the pavement, waiting at the lights at the Duke’s Avenue junction with Chiswick High Road