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The Royal Parks Agency traffic proposals for Richmond Park are now on display in the park at the Roehampton Gate Cafeteria until 10 December 2000, and in various local libraries.

If you cannot visit the display, MCC can send you a leaflet and response form - please send an SAE, marked RPA, to Merton Cycling Campaign, 29 Somerset Avenue, London, SW20 0BJ. Responses to the consultation can be received until 28 February 2001.

The RPA response form proposes the following four options:

1. Permanent closure of Ham Gate and peak-time closure of East Sheen Gate link

2. Same as 1 plus peak-time closure of eastern corridor

3. Same as 1 and 2 plus peak-time closure of western corridor
4. No change

As we had suspected, none of the options on offer include the complete banning of through motor traffic; therefore we welcome them only as a first step towards that objective.

Merton Cycling Campaign supports the Friends of Richmond Park constitution which requires that through motor-traffic should be stopped; cars and motorbikes should be allowed into the park only as far as the car park nearest to their gate of entry. For further information, see the Friends of Richmond Park Manifesto on Traffic in Richmond Park

We are now asking people to do three things:

1. Take part in the Surrey Comet on-line vote NOW!

http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/richmond/richmondparkdebate

2. If you can get there, pop into the park, look at the display, then fill in a freepost response form. We offer the following guidance: questions 1 to 4 - fill in as appropriate

• question 5 - strongly agree to this statement

• question 6 - strongly disagree to this statement

• question 7 - strongly agree to this statement

• question 8a - put a number 1 in the option E box (supporting gate and road link restrictions as preferred measure to reduce impact of traffic); put a number 2 in the option B box (20mph speed limit); put a number 3 in the option D box (improved public transport links).

We offer no guidance for the other boxes.

• question 8b - put a number 1 in the option 3 box (supporting this option, which restricts through traffic on the western and eastern corridors); put a number 2 in the option 2 box; put a number 3 in the option 1 box; put a number 4 in the option 4 box.

3. If you have time, please write to the address given on the form. MCC offers the following guidance on content:

• Support the RPA’s determination to tackle the traffic problem in the park, making the point that any degree of through motor traffic restriction is welcome only as a first step towards its complete removal at the earliest opportunity;

• Suggest that if the ultimate objective of the RPA (whose chief duty is to protect and preserve the park) is to ban through motor traffic completely, the whole process would be far better achieved in one fell swoop rather than stringing it out over a number of years.

• Query why Dame Jennifer Jenkins’ recommendation in the 1996 Royal Parks Review has been completely ignored by the RPA in these proposals. She recommended that, subject to surveys, Richmond Park should be closed to through traffic at busy weekends (the surveys have been done and show that over 95% of weekday traffic is rat-running through the park; at weekends this only drops to 80%);

• Respectfully point out that the RPA’s consultation process is fundamentally flawed since there is nothing to stop people filling in hundreds of forms each - only the responder’s postcode is required on the form. Furthermore only local people are being consulted (most of whose views are likely to be against all the proposals) despite the fact that the park is a National Nature Reserve and also a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest and is paid for by all (not just local) taxpayers.

Please circulate this message to other potential supporters of a through-traffic ban. We can win this if we show there is lots of public support, and we can be sure that the other side, ie "the Richmond Park Forum", will be at least as well organised in their campaign to keep the rat-runs open!

Hearty applause to Ursuline School Headteacher Christine Grogan for her campaign to slow the traffic down to the legal limit of 30mph outside her school. (Wimbledon Guardian, 12 October 2000).

MCC feels that more could be done across the borough, however. As we know (and reported in MCC News 16) the council will put in 20mph zones around schools, Research shows that a child hit at 20mph has a 95% chance of survival - at 30mph those odds are down to 50%.

This country has a very poor child safety record on the roads compared with many other countries in Europe. In Britain, 1 child in 15 can expect to be involved in a road accident before his/her 16th birthday. Most people agree that this is appalling, and quite intolerable - a recent poll for the Evening Standard showed that a majority of Londoners want a standard 20mph speed limit in town.

That is why the MCC is calling for a 20mph standard speed limit in town, and stricter enforcement of all speed limits.

The urban cyclist newsgroup on the internet reports this story of everyday motoring folk:

For years residents of two Somerset villages complained to police about motorists speeding past their homes. When a police speed trap was set up on a 30mph stretch of the A368 between Compton Martin and Bishop Sutton, the locals were delighted. Their euphoria turned to shame when it emerged that a large proportion of the drivers caught speeding by the laser camera were the very same villagers. Of 133 motorists caught in a fortnight, 30 were from the two villages. They are being prosecuted by police along with the others.

Fatal and serious crashes in Lancashire during the recent "fuel crisis" fell by 58% and all injury accidents by 45% according to the local county council. Traffic levels fell by 15% in town centres and 23% in rural areas. The council put this down to drivers travelling slower and less aggressively to conserve fuel. MCC has asked Merton Council if any figures are available for our area.

MCC News is edited by Ceri Davies