A council’s decision to install “prohibitive, discriminatory” barriers on a steep ramp at the exit of a park – a move purely based on anecdotal evidence, it has been revealed – has forced families using cargo bikes or those with disabilities using mobility aids or non-standard cycles onto a busy road with no cycling infrastructure, campaigners have said.
In January, months after they were installed at the western exit of Wandsworth Park in southwest London, which forms part of the local cycling network, Wandsworth Borough Council agreed to remove one of the barriers to make the ramp more accessible.
However, all three barriers currently remain in place almost five months on, with members of the Wandsworth Cycling Campaign claiming that the council has ignored their emails about the progress of the works for months.
The barriers were installed in October 2024 in Wandsworth Park, situated on the banks of the River Thames and located halfway between Wandsworth and Putney, purportedly in response to claims that cyclists were “speeding” between the park’s exit and a private residential street.
Blade Mews, Wandsworth (credit: Google Maps)
The decision, which local cycling campaigners say was made without a consultation, came after residents of Blade Mews put up signs advising cyclists to “please dismount and push your bike” through the private street.
“But a lot of cyclists weren’t dismounting and it’s downhill into the park, so they were picking up speed,” Becky Philip, a member of the Wandsworth branch of the London Cycling Campaign who uses the park to commute by cargo bike, tells road.cc.
“And apparently there were quite a few complaints about cyclists going too fast, and people worrying about accidents being caused.
“Of course, the irony is that the Blade Mews residents drive their cars and park on the road. They don’t push their cars into their parking spaces, do they?”
However, a Freedom of Information request submitted by local cyclist Andrew MacMillan, and responded to by Wandsworth Borough Council on Monday, has revealed that no formal complaints or reports of injuries or collisions involving cyclists and pedestrians in the park were submitted to the council in 2024.
Instead, the FOI request reveals that the decision to install the barriers was passed purely on “anecdotal complaints via stakeholders”.
No formal consultation also took place before the barriers were installed, though the council claims it held site meetings with the Friends of Wandsworth Park group – though Philip says these were limited to just the group’s chair.
Wandsworth Park anti-cycling barriers (credit: Becky Philip)
“We’re fully paid-up members of the Friends of Wandsworth Park, and there was no consultation at all with that body. Though there was with the chairperson, who was very much in favour of the barriers,” she tells road.cc.
Philip says that the new barriers have made exiting the park with her cargo bike impossible, forcing her to cycle with her children on nearby Putney Bridge Road, a busy stretch lined with parked cars.
“I can’t get through the barriers without help when my bike is empty. And when my children are with me, I can’t get through at all,” she tells road.cc.
“And of course, there’s not always somebody there who can help. It’s forced me onto Putney Bridge Road, which is a very busy road that has no cycling infrastructure at all. It has parked cars either side of the road.
“It’s a 20mph speed limit, but it’s a long straight road, so there’s a lot of speeding cars. And that’s now the road I have to cycle on with my children.
“I’m a very confident cyclist, I’ve been cycling in London for over a decade, and I’ve been cycling with my children on a cargo bike for five years. But not everyone is confident. And you’re forcing unconfident cyclists out onto the road, and not all bikes are super light. Even a bike with a child seat on the back is very difficult to manoeuvre up that ramp and around those barriers.
“And there’s not even a cycle lane on Putney Bridge Road, not even a line – never mind one that’s protected with wands. And that’s a road people are being forced on if they don’t want to struggle through the barriers.”
Putney Bridge Road, Wandsworth (credit: Google Maps)
She continued: “Everyone I’ve spoken to hates them – and it’s not just cyclists, it’s pedestrians. You basically can’t get more than one or two people up at a time.
“It’ll be interesting to see what it’s like in the summer, and it’ll be interesting to see what the Blade Mews residents think when there’s a bunch of people queuing beside their cars because they can’t get down. Because you now can’t get out of the park quickly when there’s a lot of people there.”
The recent FOI request also revealed that the council failed to carry out an Equality Needs Impact Assessment before installing the barriers – which Philip believes is clear by their design, which she describes as “prohibitive for anyone in a wheelchair or adapted cycle”.
“A man who just had knee surgery said he found it really hard to make it down because he couldn’t twist his knee,” she says. “Mums with pushchairs – trying to get a pushchair around that kind of chicane uphill is tough.”
Philip says she immediately complained to the council last October about the barriers, eventually holding three on-site meetings with staff.
And at the end of January, the local authority confirmed that it would remove one of the external barriers, to make the gap slightly wider, and reduce the incline of the slop towards the exit, as part of what the cargo bike rider labels a “compromise” solution.
“The immediate response was: ‘we applaud you for cycling and using a cargo bike, and taking another car off the roads, and we’re sorry these barriers have stopped you from cycling’,” she says of the reaction to her initial complaint.
However, since that agreement in January, Philip says she’s been met with radio silence when requesting updates of the work’s progress.
“I have the council, and they haven’t replied to me at all – so I have no idea where we’re at with it. I’ve heard nothing. I’ve had no responses to my emails, at all,” she says.
Nevertheless, Philip insists she’s hopeful one of the barriers will be removed – “because I’ll keep emailing them until someone gets back to me!” – but isn’t confident that the work will be carried out imminently.
“A solution has been agreed, so I’m hoping they’re just going through the process of getting the engineers in, I don’t know. I do have hope it’s going to be done. But I don’t have hope it’s going to be done anytime soon,” she says.
“The whole point is we’re supposed to be encouraging active travel, and this really does go against that in every sense.”
With no concrete evidence to back up the local authority’s decision, the cycling campaigner believes the barriers were installed thanks to a “skewed” perception of the dangers of cyclists around pedestrians.
“A lot of pedestrians end up complaining about cyclists. Whereas cyclists don’t tend to complain too much,” she notes. “I’ve been knocked off my bike before, been cut up by drivers, and I didn’t tell anyone from the council or anything like that.
“But because it’s more localised for pedestrians – they’re walking around the park and this happened – they’re more likely to complain.
“So, I think the council get a skewed idea of people’s views towards cyclists. And they’ve listened to those people without fully appreciating the impact it’s going to have on everyone else.”
road.cc contacted Wandsworth Borough Council last week for comment but is yet to receive a response.