Access to safe bike parking is vital to enable people to make their journeys by bike – highlighted recently in the “this is awkward” campaign.

RBKC is putting in place some bike hangars, but it has very few compared to other London boroughs (or the demand for them) – about 10% of the secure bike spaces of Hackney, for example.

It’s also wrong that car parking is available (immediately, no waiting list!) for £21 / year, whereas for a bike it costs £72 / year for just one-sixth of the space, and the wait list is huge – it can be years).

The cost of parking a bike shouldn’t be more than a car.  Some say “what about the costs of managing the bike hangars?”. It’s a fair question.  But so is, “what’s the market rate for renting a parking space in RBKC?”  People who don’t own cars - only 25% of our borough’s households own a car- are (heavily) subsidising those that do, by allowing them to rent public space in the borough for far below the market rate (road wear and tear, a big factor in council budgets, is also caused by motor vehicles, not by those walking, wheeling or cycling).  So it’s only fair that charges are brought more into line.  Other London boroughs are already charging just one-half of RBKC for a bike space.

RBKC need rapidly to roll out secure and inclusive cycle parking and keep waiting lists short for those who live in, work in and visit the borough at transport interchanges, town centres, amenities, on residential streets and in council estates and provide shared mobility hubs for bikes, e-bikes, e-scooters, cargo e-bikes (using road, rather than pavement space), as well as shared electric cars.