Conway Street Streatery for outdoor dining

Overview

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed how people in Camden live, travel and work. 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.

To help, we have been making temporary changes across Camden in our Streateries Programme: Streateries change parking bays to spaces in the road for businesses to place tables and chairs for al fresco dining, protected by barriers. This means pedestrians, wheelchair and buggy users can pass safely on the pavement.

We want to ensure that our streets support a strong recovery from the pandemic and provide a lasting legacy of greener, safer, healthier travel, places for people to spend time and enjoy, and the regeneration of our local High Streets. To support this we are now consulting on making some of our Streateries permanent.

Camden’s town centres and High Streets are at the heart of local communities and community life; they are places where residents, workers and visitors shop, work, socialise, and access culture and services. However, they have been facing a range of challenges in recent years with a shift away from traditional retail to online shopping, accelerated by the pandemic. In response Camden has developed a Future High Streets programme to support our high streets into a robust recovery but also reorientate them for a new future role so that they continue to add to community life. Streateries are essential for delivering this vision: they help to revitalise streets, creating destinations for residents and visitors to meet, socialise and spend time, adding to street life and vibrancy, increasing footfall, and regenerating the wider local economy.

We are now consulting on making some Streateries permanent, to help businesses in the Borough who wish to continue using the Streatery spaces, subject to approval of licence applications. This includes the Lore of the Land pub on Conway Street.

We implemented the Streatery scheme on Conway Street as a trial in July 2021, under an Experimental Traffic Order as part of Phase 3 of our Streatery programme. The decision report related to this Experimental Traffic Order (and others) was approved on 29 June 2021 and is provided in the Related Links section at the bottom of this page.

This decision report noted that a further consultation, after approximately 12 months of the trial scheme being implemented, would take place relating to any proposed permanent changes.

This consultation now asks local residents and stakeholders to give their views on whether or not the scheme should be made permanent after the end of the 18-months' Experimental Traffic Order trial period.

Why your views matter

A Streatery was implemented on Conway Street in July 2021 to support the Lore of the Land pub for a trial 18 months' period. The decision relating to this can be found in the Related Links section below. Following the trial, we are now proposing to make this Streatery permanent, subject to the business securing a tables and chairs licence, and we want to know your views on these proposal:

• Permanently retain the space created from the removal of 11 metres of double yellow lines outside the pub, to provide 11 metres of Streatery space, protected by barriers around the new space, for tables and chairs. 

• Permanently retain the relocated dockless bike hire/e-scooter parking bay that was created from converting 5.5 metres of double yellow lines outside No. 8 Conway Street, and permanantly keeping the double yellow lines outside No. 3 Conway Street (opposite the pub).  

• Permanently retain the relocated green badge disabled parking bay that was created from converting 5.5 metres of single yellow outside No.10 Conway Street and retain the single yellow lines outside No. 9 Conway Street;   

• Permanently retain one-way southbound for motor traffic on Conway Street from the junction with Grafton Way to the junction with Maple Street, with contra-flow northbound cycling - allowing cycling in both directions;

• Permanently retain one-way for motor traffic eastbound on Grafton Way, from the junction with Cleveland Street to the junction with Conway Street, with contra-flow cycling westbound- allowing cycling in both directions. 

• Permanantly retain the double blip kerb markings (no loading at any time) on Conway Street, at the junction of Maple Street and adjacent to the cycle lane.

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

We want to engage our local residents, businesses and stakeholders in changes happening on their streets and to know what you think about these proposals.

The results of the consultation, together with consideration of other data and our wider policies will inform a decision as to whether or not to make the Streatery on Conway Street permanent. 

What happens next

Your views, and those of everyone who contributes to this consultation, will be analysed and considered, alongside relevant data available on the scheme and in light of how the scheme aligns with our current policy objectives, in order to put forward recommendations on whether to proceed with the proposals. A summary of this analysis will be provided in the decision report, and will be made available on the Camden Council website in due course.

If you have any other ideas for improvements to make travel safer and healthier in this area, please go to Safe Travel Camden Map  to make some suggestions.