Friday 30 October is the deadline for responses to the consultation on the Ilford Opportunity Area Planning Framework.
The Framework will inform policy on housing, public spaces, roads and cycling in Ilford and the surrounding area for many years to come. Here is the official website, on which you can read the consultation documents and submit your views through a planning portal.
Redbridge Cycling Campaign submitted a response, reflecting the views of members expressed at the RCC meeting help on 17 November. The draft meeting minutes are on the meetings page.
You can read our consultation response here. London Cycling Campaign have submitted a separate response covering London-wide aspects.
There is another survey we would like your help with. Our highly successful ride season has finished and the rides co-ordinator, who works assiduously all year to organise and lead the rides, would really appreciate your feedback. The rides survey is here. Reports and photos of all the year’s rides are on the rides page.
Redbridge Council, along with the Mayor of London and Transport for London, are consulting on a new long-term strategy for Ilford – the Ilford Opportunity Area Planning Framework. The Framework sets out proposals for the future of housing, roads, public spaces and transport in Ilford town centre and the surrounding area, including provision for cycling.
The next Redbridge Cycling Campaign meeting will be held by Zoom at 19:30 on Tuesday, 20 October 2026. The meeting will focus on our response to the consultation.
Our draft response, which highlights points for discussion, is available on our meetings page, where you can find further details. You are welcome to attend using the joining link. Please read the draft response and come ready to raise any comments. We aim to finalise a response for submission to the Council by the consultation deadline of 30 October.
If you can’t make the meeting but would like to tell us your views, please email coordinator@redbridgecycling.org. If you decide to submit your own response to the Council, we would be interested to hear what you said.
London Cycling Campaign is hoping to get the support of local party leaders to build safe cycle networks in their Boroughs – something that would benefit thousands of Londoners each and every day. LCC is calling its campaign Streets for Cycling.
As we all know, here in Redbridge, there’s plenty of opportunity to improve things …
So, what is RCC going to do?
We have just emailed each of the main parties or, if we know who they are, the local leaders of these parties, to ask them to pledge their support for Streets for Cycling.
Here is the text of the email we are sending
On behalf of Redbridge Cycling Campaign, the local group of the London Cycling Campaign, I am asking you to pledge your party to building a safe cycle network in Redbridge, something that would benefit many thousands of Redbridge residents every day.
A connected cycle network makes cycling safer for everyone, whether that is children cycling to school, families cycling to the park, or people going to their train station, GP or local shops.
Transport for London has identified seven key cycling corridors within our Borough. Just building a route along the corridor between Ilford and Chadwell Heath would create a commuter route across the Borough towards Stratford and the City, would transport residents to our Elizabeth Line stations and link Ilford to Seven Kings, Goodmayes and Chadwell Heath.
Creating cycle routes along another four of the seven corridors would connect the high streets and town centres of Ilford, Gants Hill, Barkingside, Woodford Bridge and Woodford Green and connect the Aldersbrook area to Wanstead and Leytonstone.
Routes along the two remaining corridors would provide a commuting route from the northern Borough boundary at Woodford Bridge to the Green Man roundabout in Leytonstone and then on to the City.
These seven routes, combined with the Borough’s School Streets and expanding number of area wide 20mph zones, would create a wide network of safe cycle routes across a large part of the Borough.
Irrespective of which party or parties form the next administration, the financial climate will be poor, but the good news here is that …
Transport for London has funding available, that the London Borough of Redbridge can bid for, to build routes along these corridors.
So we are asking you to pledge to build these routes by 2030: the project is not too big and the funding is there.
We think it will be popular but, notwithstanding its popularity, without a switch from cars to cycles, Redbridge is going to grind to a halt.
Here is a link to a map that shows the seven TFL strategic cycling corridors in Redbridge. The lines are straight because routes have not been built yet.
If you are thinking about pledging your support but have some questions, we would be pleased to meet with you and answer them. We can also take you on a ride through the Borough to see things on the ground.
Either way, if you want to take up the offer we are available from now until the 14th of April.
During the pre-election period you may receive emails from residents asking you to take the Streets for Cycling pledge. Please let me know if this is not the best email address to reach your local party leadership, and if so, what alternative you would like residents to use.
You can see that we are offering to
meet the local party leaders or their representatives if they are thinking about pledging but have some questions.
take local party leaders or their representatives on a ride in the Borough to see things in the ground.
We will update our post when leaders make the pledge. In a couple of weeks time we will chase up any leaders who have not replied.
You can email leaders yourself.
London Cycling Campaign has made it easy for us all to email local leaders. Log on to their website and look for this panel. Your email will be sent to your Borough’s local party leaders.
We know that there may not be many votes in improving cycling provision and that other issues are likely to dominate the election. And parties may be reluctant to make commitments for fear of making themselves hostages to fortune. But, at the same time, it is an opportunity to let those standing for election know that there are many residents who think improving the Borough’s provision for cyclists is important. And you never know, they might just remember that once in Office. So, email away!
If enough of us ask the Council to spend more on cycle infrastructure it’s possible that it might – especially as improving the provision for cyclists is an essential to implementing the Council’s Sustainable Transport Strategy:
“We have adopted a sustainable transport “road user hierarchy “which simply states that in our future decision-making, whether that be investments, how we designer scheme or our policies, we will consider the needs of certain people, ways of travelling and vehicle types before others.”
So, allocating more money to cycling will be the Council putting its money where its mouth is …
If we don’t ask for what we want, we will lose out to others who do. The survey is quick and easy. The two key questions are 3 and 4. Here are my answers to those two questions.
Q3. An independent nationwide survey carried out by IMPOWER saw Redbridge ranked as the most efficient and best value for money council in London and 2nd best in England. Though proud of this we’re not at all complacent and know there’s always room to improve. With that in mind, what could the council be doing that would make a positive difference for you?
A: Investing more, both in terms of money and staff, in cycling. The Borough should have a network of safe cycling routes so that residents can use bicycles to go about their daily lives – going shopping, taking their children to school, going to the railway station, the GP etc. This needs investment and council officers with suitable skills and in sufficient numbers to carry out the work.
Q4. When it comes to setting a budget, much of what councils do today focuses on the things that we have to provide – essential services like making sure we’ve got enough social workers to help our most vulnerable children and young people and collecting your waste and recycling. Where we do have more flexibility, it would be helpful to know what your local priorities are.
Of the following, please tick up to three areas you’d want us to prioritise in the future
þHighways – maintaining roads and pavements, fixing potholes, managing water gritting, and improving road safety and walking/cycling routes.
Full details are in the post below, but here are the headlines:
There’s a lot to like and the proposals deserve our support.
From a cyclists point of view we think the schemes could be improved by
Replacing not some but all the traffic islands along Aldersbrook Road with zebra crossings on raised tables.
Extending the restricted access hours on the Lake House estate to minimize motor vehicle traffic during the school run – to make it a school cycle.
Making Woodlands Avenue a school street – like Harpenden Road.
Replacing the speed cushions on St Marys Avenue with full width speed humps.
Introducing a rat running reduction scheme on the Warren Estate to stop traffic using the estate’s roads as a cut through from the A12 to Blake Hall Road.
Installing tiger crossings (cyclists and pedestrians) on each of the roads that enter the mini roundabouts at the junction of Aldersbrook Road, Centre Road, Lake House Road and Blae Hall Road. One is going in on Aldersbrook Road so why not on the others?
