Kingston locals have taken to social media to expose the poor conditions of some roads in the borough and how unsafe they are for cyclists.
Angry Twitter posts show neglected roads and dangerous encounters between vehicles and cyclists, whose lanes are very narrow and are usually occupied by cars.
“The roads are a total disgrace, not fixing potholes, utilities roadworks everywhere that then also leave huge further damage often in the roads. It never ends,” said local resident Andrea Craig.
Green Party councillor Sharron Sumner said some repairs had been done.
“I know that the roads in the most affluent areas of the borough were resurfaced,” she said.
“I represent Alexandra Ward and the roads there are really neglected. I have met with the Council to get some repairs done, and they have done some work.”
Kingston Council did not respond to a request for comment.
Although some repairs have been carried out, road issues crop up frequently.
On the Transport for London (TFL) website Streetcare, a hub where residents can report street issues to TFL directly, locals report problems on a daily basis.
Over the last week the website received six reports on average per day, including complaints about potholes on the streets, pedestrian lights stuck on red and traffic lights changing too fast on cycling lanes.
A tweet from the Green Party dating back to February 23 expressed disappointment about the Council not taking the opportunity to fix the roads during lockdown in order to cause less inconvenience.
The tweet said: “We are disappointed that no real new road safety measures were implemented across the borough during lockdown. With the roadmap now laid out and traffic increasing daily, it’s almost too late. We urged this to be done before Christmas. Safety should be a priority.”
This tweet, which did not receive any comments from the Council’s official Twitter account, is one of many posts that RBK Greens has published, addressing road safety issues that are mostly affecting cyclists.
Twitter group @friendofkingstongate, a group that has promoted clean and safe roads on the social media platform since 2019, said they have been asking the Council for help for over 10 years but nothing is being done.
The group said: “We’ve asked for trial measures to reduce the volume of vehicles. Asked the Council to come up with how that could be achieved, based around Healthy Streets initiative. Had a meeting with councillors years ago but nothing is being done.”
