Bayley Street - Safe and healthy Streets Consultation

Overview

We want our streets to have more safe space for everyone to walk and cycle, for children to get to and from school safely and healthily, for businesses to be able to flourish, to reduce carbon emissions from vehicles and for you to be breathing cleaner air.

We want our streets to provide a lasting legacy of greener, safer, healthier travel.

In line with our Camden Transport Strategy, Climate Action Plan, and Clean Air Action Plan, and to continue supporting safe, healthy, and active travel we have been making changes across Camden as part of our Safe and Healthy Streets Programme.

The building at 247 Tottenham Court Road, 3 Bayley Street, and 1-4 Morwell Street has been demolished and is currently being replaced by a new building to be known as The Fitzrovia comprising a mixture of uses including office, retail, restaurant, and residential (view the plans using planning reference 2020/3583/P).

We have secured funding via a legal agreement relating to the planning permission towards the creation of a pocket park at the western end of Bayley Street between Morwell Street and Tottenham Court Road. This was to be delivered as part of the West End Project but was deferred until completion of the new building (currently projected to be Winter 2024).

Currently a Santander cycle hire docking station with 25 docking points is located on the south side of Bayley Street between Morwell Street and Tottenham Court Road. This will be relocated to near 16-19 Percy Street to create space for the pocket park and has already been approved in a separate consultation.

We want to help make streets safer and healthier across Camden. So, on Bayley Street between Morwell Street and Tottenham Court Road, we want to add a new permanent pocket park – a space with trees, plants, and places to sit. This includes rain gardens (which help store water in heavy rainfall) and the planting of 4 trees (subject to ground condition surveys).

We are now consulting on the following propose permanent changes to Bayley Street.

Walking changes:

• Creating an informal pedestrian route across Bayley Street between the rain gardens on either side of the two-way cycle track (see below).

Cycling changes:

• Resurfacing of the existing two-way cycle track on Bayley Street between Morwell Street and Tottenham Court Road in high quality granite setts and adding standard cycle route signs and road markings.
• Installing new cycle parking stands on Bayley Street to provide bike parking for people visiting the area.

Planting and greening changes:

• Creating rain gardens on either side of the two-way cycle track on Bayley Street between Morwell Street and Tottenham Court Road, including low-level planting and trees (subject to ground condition surveys). Rain gardens are where new plants and trees would create an area which can soak up water during heavy rainfall. This would support a key objective of Camden’s Climate Action Plan by helping to provide shade and shelter on our streets, and removing some CO2 out of the atmosphere, helping to tackle the climate crisis. The gardens would also contribute to improvements in air quality, local biodiversity by adding new habitats for nature and how the area looks and feels. Rain gardens and trees help to soften hard landscapes and can make walking more enjoyable. You can see an image of an example rain garden in the photo guide at the bottom of this page.

Loading, parking, and road marking changes:

• Removing the existing loading bay on the north side of Bayley Street to facilitate the creation of the pocket park.
• Converting 21 metres of double yellow lines on the north side of Bayley Street to a loading bay to facilitate the creation of the pocket park.
• Removing the resident permit holders only parking bay on the north side of Bayley Street and extending the adjacent E-Scooter & Cycle Hire parking bay by 5.7 metres to provide additional capacity for dockless e-bike and e-scooter hire parking in the area.

You can view drawings of the scheme proposals in the Related section at the bottom of this page. Further details on rain gardens are also provided below.

About the proposed rain gardens on Bayley Street

We are adding more plants and trees (subject to ground condition surveys) across our streets to help minimise water runoff. One way to do this is to increase the amount of on street water storage to soak up water when severe rains arrive, which the climate crisis makes more likely.

Rain gardens capture and store rainwater, function as great local habitats for wildlife, and improve the look and feel of an area. They can also have a positive effect in reducing public exposure to air pollution in some environments, as well as bringing additional benefits through increased biodiversity, improved mental health and wellbeing, and absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere at pavement level.

The proposed rain gardens including plants and trees would be constructed on existing pavement buildouts and would be similar in design to the photo below.

Why your views matter

Your views matter to us on this scheme because as 69% of households in Camden (82% in the Bloomsbury Ward) do not own a car we know that providing infrastructure and improvements that enable safe and easy walking, wheeling, cycling, and scooting on our streets are more important than ever.

Supporting and encouraging those who can walk and cycle, by creating safer streets, will ensure that there is more space available on public transport and on our roads for those who need it the most. Your views are important in providing feedback both on the proposed scheme as a whole, and specific elements of it, and we would therefore welcome your responses to the consultation questionnaire.

To view the plans and find out more about what each proposal would achieve, click on the links in the Related Section at the bottom of this page.

After the consultation, a decision report will be produced and published online via our website. Local residents and stakeholders will be notified of the outcome. The report will consider a broad range of information including consultation responses relevant policies, and other data/information.

All of this information will be considered in making a recommendation in the report about whether or not to implement the scheme. Should a decision be made to proceed, we would implement the changes under a permanent Traffic Management Order in Autumn/Winter 2024 subject to practical completion of the development currently under construction at 247 Tottenham Court Road, 3 Bayley Street, and 1-4 Morwell Street. We would then carefully monitor the changes following construction to make sure they operate effectively.

For information on how we will use data collected from this consultation read our privacy statement: Data protection, privacy and cookies - Camden Council

What happens next

After the consultation, a decision report will be produced and published online via our website. Local residents and stakeholders will be notified of the outcome. The report will consider a broad range of information including consultation responses relevant policies, and other data/information.

All of this information will be considered in making a recommendation in the report about whether or not to implement the scheme. Should a decision be made to proceed, we would implement the changes under a permanent Traffic Management Order in Autumn/Winter 2024 subject to practical completion of the development currently under construction at 247 Tottenham Court Road, 3 Bayley Street, and 1-4 Morwell Street. We would then carefully monitor the changes following construction to make sure they operate effectively.

For information on how we will use data collected from this consultation read our privacy statement: Data protection, privacy and cookies - Camden Council