Transforming Regent's Park Road and Erskine Road through Streateries - permanent proposals

Overview

We are seeking your views on our proposals to make our trial Streateries for outdoor dining on Regent's Park Road and Erskine Road permanent. 

We also have new proposals to create an entrance feature for Regent's Park Road plus would like to hear your ideas on what you want for the future of this street. 

Background Information

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 you to be breathing cleaner air, and for businesses to be able to flourish.  We want our streets to provide a lasting legacy of greener, safer, healthier travel with places for people to spend time in and enjoy, regenerating our local neighbourhood centres and high streets.  

To help, we have been making trial changes across Camden as part of our Streateries Programme: Streateries change parking bays in the road to spaces where businesses can place tables and chairs for al fresco dining (subject to an approved tables and chairs licence), protected by barriers. This means pedestrians, and wheelchair users and buggy users can pass safely on the pavement.

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, spend time and access culture and services. Camden has developed a Future High Streets vision to support our high streets, make them more resilient and so that they can continue to add to community life.

Streateries are essential for delivering this vision and bring many benefits to an area including:

• helping to revitalise streets
• creating destinations for residents and visitors to meet, socialise and spend time,
• adding to street life and vibrancy,
• increasing footfall in the area which boosts local businesses beyond those resturants and cafes with the Streateries, so helping to regenerate the wider local economy.

Over the past few years our Streateries Commonplace webpages have allowed residents to provide feedback on all our Streateries across the borough. The majority (77%) of people posting comments on the Commonplace webpage were happy with our Streateries overall.  

Streateries on Regent's Park Road 

Making the Streateries on Regent's Park Road and Erskine Road Permanent

We are now consulting on making the trial Streateries on Regent's Park Road and Erskine Road in Primrose Hill permanent.  We are also consulting on removing underutilised Streateries; more details are below.  Having attractive outdoor dining options help to attract people to an area and we see the Streateries here as a catalyst for shaping the future of the area - and we want you to help by giving your views!

The Streateries on Regent's Park Road and Erskine Road were first implemented as a temporary measure in 2020 and 2021 in response to the pandemic when indoor seating was limited. Parking was removed or relocated to create new spaces in the road where businesses could place tables and chairs (subject to securing a licence), protected by barriers.

In April 2023 the Streateries were extended for a further 18 months as a trial under an Experimental Traffic Order (ETO) until October 2024. As part of the new trial, we responded to concerns about the appearance of the Streateries which were installed in 2020/2021 with red and white plastic barriers. We received comments from some residents and businesses concerned that the plastic barriers were unsightly and could easily be moved. We therefore upgraded the barriers to the current wooden planters at most locations. 

We propose to make these Streateries permanent using the existing planters in the short-term, and also upgrade any remaining unsuitable existing furniture with wooden planters. If following this consultation, a decision is made to make the trial Streateries permanent then longer-term we would go on to develop proposals for more transformational measures on Regent's Park Road to help regenerate this neighbourhood cente. 

Full details of what we are proposing are below:

• Permanently keep the Streatery space outside 49 - 51 Regent’s Park Road which was created from the removal of 11.8 meters of shared use residents’ and paid for parking to provide 11.8 meters of outdoor dining space in the road and wooden planters/barriers.

• Permanently keep the Streatery space outside 57 Regent’s Park Road which was created from the removal of 9.2 meters of shared use residents’ and paid for parking to provide 9.2 meters of outdoor dining space in the road with wooden planters/barriers.

• Permanently keep the Streatery space outside 71 Regent’s Park Road. This outdoor dining space was created from the removal of 10.2 meters of shared use residents’ and paid for parking and 1.3 meters of double yellow lines (no parking at any time) to provide 11.5 meters of outdoor dining space in the road with wooden planters/barriers.  

• Permanently keep the Streatery space outside 89 Regent’s Park Road which was created from the removal of 13.2 meters of shared use residents’ and paid for parking to provide 13.2 meters of outdoor dining space in the road with wooden planters/barriers.  

• Permanently keep the Streatery space outside 103 - 105 Regent’s Park Road which was created from relocating 5 meters of doctors' parking and removing 7 meters of shared use residents and paid for parking space to provide 12 meters of outdoor dining space and barriers. 

• Permanently keep the relocated doctor's parking bay outside no. 91 Regent's Park Road which was created from converting 5 meters of shared residents' and paid for parking. 

• Permanently keep the Streatery space outside 136-138 Regent’s Park Road which was created from the removal of 12.5 meters of shared use residents’ and paid for parking to provide 12.5 meters of outdoor dining space and wooden planters/barriers. 

• Permanently keep the Streatery space outside 146 - 154 Regent’s Park Road which was created from the removal of 21 meters of shared use residents' and paid for parking to provide 21 meters of outdoor dining space and wooden planters/barriers.  

We also propose to:

• Permanently keep 9.6 meters of double yellow lines around the junction of Regent's Park Road and Erskine Road which were created from removing 8.2 meters of shared use residents and paid for parking and 1.4 meters of single yellow line (parking outside the hours of control) to help deliver the Council's Junction Protection Programme (JPP).  The JPP is an essential part of our Road Safety Action Plan to reduce road risk, by removing parking within approximately 10 meters of all junctions in the borough to improve sight lines for all road users, in line with the provision of the Highway Code. 

As part of this consultation, we are also proposing to remove or reduce the size of Streateries where they are no longer required or in locations where businesses have ceased operating. Here we are proposing to:

• Remove the Streatery outside No.130 Regent's Park Road
• Reduce the size of the Streatery outside No.4 Erskine Road from 12 meters to 6 meters.

These are shown on the drawing in the Related Section below. 

New 'Gateway Feature' at the Junction of Regent's Park Road and Primrose Hill Road

As part of our commitment to improve this local high street, we are also proposing to introduce some permanent improvements close to the junction with Primrose Hill Road.  We want to create a new 'gateway feature' to create a sense of arrival at this different and unique part of Regent's Park Road, for the local community as well as visitors.   

Gateway visualisation

This section of Regent's Park Road, between Primrose Hill Road and Gloucester Avenue, has a high footfall and people are out and about on the street shopping, socialising or eating or drinking outdoors. This proposed 'gateway feature' would signal to drivers to slow down in the main retail area when approaching from the south. 

To achieve this new 'gateway feature' we are proposing:

• widening the pavements - by approximately 2 meters on both sides of Regent's Park Road, between Primrose Hill Road and St George's Terrace

• installing rain gardens - these are areas of planting that soak up water during heavy rainfall, improve biodiversity and provide shade.  We also want to add seating around areas of planting for you to be able to stop and relax. 

• raising the crossing point - to help slow down vehicles and make it easier for people to cross the road. 

To view the plans please click on the links in the Related Section at the bottom of this page.

Both our proposals to make the Streateries on Regent's Park Road and Erskine Road permanent (and remove redundant ones) along with the proposed gateway feature respond to feedback received during the trial and are the first steps in developing a longer-term plan to transform Regent's Park Road.  As part of this longer-term plan we want to support the local community and businesses who have highlighted the success of nearby local high streets such as the recently upgraded St John's Wood High Street in Westminster. 

We welcome your views on the above proposals plus what you think Regent's Park Road needs in the future.  

Why your views matter

This is your opportunity to comment.

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

After the consultation, the Decision Report on the proposals in this consultation 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, feedback received during the trial period, relevant policies, and other data/information, including monitoring information collected during the trial period.

All of this information will be considered in making a recommendation in the report about whether, at the end of the trial period, the experimental scheme should be made permanent with some changes, modified or allowed to lapse and whether the additional measures proposed in this consultation are introduced.

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 officer observations, consultation responses, feedback received during the trial period, relevant policies, and other data/information.

The report will then outline if at the end of the trial period, the experimental scheme should be made permanent, modified, or allowed to lapse. Subject to the decision to make the scheme permanent, officers will continue to monitor the scheme and will consider additional measures if necessary. These will be progressed and publicly consulted on as part of a separate scheme.