Warren Street Streatery

Overview

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed how people in Camden live, travel and work. Since the start of the pandemic many of us have been spending more time closer to home, making our neighbourhoods more important than ever. We want our streets to be safe spaces for you to walk and cycle, for children to get to and from school safely and healthily, for businesses to be able to flourish and for you to be breathing cleaner air.

In 2020 the Council set up a Streateries programme to support the hospitality sector so that they could continue to trade, particularly during the summer months when lockdown eased. 

Social distancing rules meant that indoor seating was limited. In 2020 the UK Government introduced new legislation to make it easier for businesses to apply for pavement licences for outdoor eating and drinking so that they could continue to trade, but many pavements in the borough are too narrow to allow tables and chairs outside. The Streateries programme extends the footway area so that businesses can offer addtional outdoor dining, and pedestrians can pass safely. 

Why your views matter

Several temporary Streateries were installed at the eastern end of Warren Street, in Fitzrovia, in 2020. Parking spaces were suspended and temporary water filled barriers were placed in the road to provide additional pavement space, so that businesses could put tables and chairs outside for al fresco dining. 

We are now carrying out a consultation to continue some Streateries on Warren Street so that they can continue to be used, and propose the following as a trial: 

- outside nos. 25 - 28: keeping  27 metres of outdoor dining space that was previously 11 metres of residents' parking bays and 16 metres of single yellow lines

- retain the pedestrian and cycle zone from no. 29 Warren Street to the junction with Fitzroy Street with no vehicle access to Warren Street from the west

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.

In line with new Department for Transport guidance, we are now consulting on all new and amended Safe and Healthy Street schemes so that we can engage our local residents, businesses and stakeholders in changes happening on their streets. We want to know what you think about these additional proposals.

What happens next

After the consultation, we will carefully consider the responses, alongside other information, to help us in deciding on whether or not to progress the scheme. Should a decision be made to proceed, we would keep the Streatery on a “trial” basis, for a maximum 18-month period, under an Experimental Traffic Order (ETO). This will allow us to continue to test the changes we’ve previously made under temporary orders, so that we can continue to monitor how they work. If this trial is approved, a further public consultation will be held after around 12 months of the ETO period to assess stakeholder feedback at that point and feed into the final decision, alongside other data and information, on whether or not to make the Streatery in this location permanent.