Newton Street, Parker Street & Macklin Street - Holborn Liveable Neighbourhood STARter Project Consultation

Overview

Proposed improvements to: walking, cycling, road safety, planting and the look and feel of the area

We want to transform Holborn into a place for people with attractive, healthy, accessible and safe streets for everyone! We want the air you’re breathing to be cleaner, for there to be more plants and trees, in beautiful new and improved spaces. We want to make getting around by sustainable and healthy types of transport easier and faster. Together, we want to see Holborn and its communities, businesses and visitors thrive.

Newton Street, Parker Street and Macklin Street are located within the Holborn Liveable Neighbourhood area. We are proposing changes here as part of a STARter project - improvements that we think can be delivered now, ahead of the wider project. The Holborn Liveable Neighbourhood area has been identified in the Camden Transport Strategy (CTS) Delivery Plan as an area of very high priority in terms of addressing road safety. Cycleway 52 – a primary north/south cycle route connecting the Covent Garden area to Euston – also runs along Newton Street.

Why your views matter

Your views matter to improve Newton Street, Parker Street, Macklin Street and the surrounding area to help people walk, wheel, cycle or scoot safely while also enhancing the attractiveness and biodiversity of the local area, reducing and mitigating the impacts of climate change, poor air quality and road danger.

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

Our proposals include:

• Upgrading of the advisory contraflow cycle lane on Newton Street (a contraflow lane runs against the flow of traffic) to a stepped cycle track between High Holborn and Parker Street, to support safer, more inclusive conditions for cycling on Cycleway 52.
   
• Adding an advisory contraflow cycle lane on Parker Street between Newton Street and Kingsway, to allow eastbound cycling and improve cycle permeability. A contraflow lane runs against the flow of traffic.
   
• Widening the pavement outside 8 Newton Street, The Garden Cinema, and at the junction of Newton Street and Great Queen Street, to rebalance the road space in favour of healthier, more sustainable travel options and create a more pleasant environment for pedestrians.
   
• Continuous pavements (where the pavement material continues over the road) at the Newton Street junctions with Great Queen Street and Parker Street, Parker Street junction with A4200 Kingsway, and across existing vehicular accesses on Newton Street, to improve accessibility and promote pedestrian priority for those walking and wheeling. You can see an example of a continuous pavement in the photo guide in the related documents section below.
   
• Junction protection measures, which improve road safety on Newton Street on all approaches to the junction with Parker Street, including narrowing of the road and introduction of no loading at any time restrictions (double yellow blip kerbs).
   
• Installation of dropped kerbs at the Newton Street junction with Parker Street, to improve the ability to cross the road for those wheeling and people with reduced mobility.
   
• Rationalisation of on-street parking to rebalance road space in favour of healthier, more sustainable travel options. This includes:
   
  • Relocating 25.6m of resident permit holders parking (approximately 5 spaces) from outside 8 Newton Street, the Garden Cinema on Newton Street, and to the west of the Garden Cinema service access on Parker Street, to outside 42 Parker Street, in place of single yellow line (no net loss to resident permit parking spaces overall).   
  • Introducing a single 10m dockless e-bike/scooter parking bay adjacent to the Garden Cinema on Newton Street to increase dockless bike and e-scooter parking availability for both residents and visitors to the area.
  • Removing 17.3m (approximately 3 spaces) of pay-by-phone parking.
  • Relocating one disabled bay from outside 8 Newton Street to adjacent to the Garden Cinema on Newton Street.
  • Relocating 15m of motorcycle parking (approximately 15 spaces) from outside the Garden Cinema on Parker Street to the west of the Garden Cinema service access on Parker Street
  • Replacing 5.2m of car club parking (approximately one space) with two new residential cycle hangars on Parker Street
• Changes to local loading opportunities, including the provision of a dedicated loading only bay on Parker Street, 11m of timed loading (single yellow blip kerbs that permit loading outside the hours of Monday to Friday between 07:00-10:00 and 16:30-18:30 only) adjacent to 8 Newton Street, and new no loading at any time restrictions (double yellow blip kerbs) along Newton Street and Parker Street (between A4200 Kingsway and Newton Street).
   
• New planting and rain gardens to support improved biodiversity, health and wellbeing, and climate resilience. Rain gardens are areas of planting which take up extra water from heavy rainfall helping to counteract local flooding. You can see an example of a rain garden in the photo guide in the related documents section below.

We are also seeking your ideas for how the public space on Macklin Street between Newton Street and Stukeley Street could be improved. This could include things like new seating, lighting, planting, direction signs to help you get around or artworks co-created with the local primary school or local artists. These improvements would be created by amending the existing traffic order (which already restricts vehicular access) in this section of Macklin Street.

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.

How would these changes be made?

After the consultation, we will carefully consider the responses, alongside other information including relevant data, safety audits and policy context, to help us in deciding on whether or not to progress the scheme.

A decision report will be produced and published online via our website. Local residents and stakeholders will be notified of the outcome. Should a decision be made to proceed, we would implement the changes under a permanent Traffic Management Order (TMO).

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