Kate Hoey, Labour MP for Vauxhall, is an absolute disgrace, and I would urge anyone who is her constituent or has any contact with her to let her know this in writing.
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| Kate Hoey has been dangerously cycle-toxic for all of her 14 years as MP for Vauxhall |
Danny from Cyclists in the City has previously written about her cretinous attitude towards cycling.
However, her latest piece of idiocy has been to block the installation of a large Cycle Hire Docking Station on Cornwall Road, SE1, in order to preserve car-parking bays.
It is completely ridiculous to block the installation of 35 bike hire racks that can be used by hundreds people during the course of a day in order to preserve 3 on-street car parking spaces.
Moreover, SE1 a part of London that, located so close to Waterloo and the South Bank, is already extremely congested and busy, and therefore unsuitable for heavy on-street car-use.
What especially annoys be about Kate Hoey's despicable actions is the amount of grief that TfL and the Mayor sustain for problems with the Boris Bike system, when it is politicians like Hoey (and the Westminster and Kensington & Chelsea councils that won't let TfL move Boris Bikes around in the early morning) that are actively preventing improvements to the Cycle Hire Scheme.
Mark Field, Conservative MP for Westminster, does exactly the same thing in his constituency.
Those who like cycling to get from A to B should be ever aware that often it is not TfL that are the problem, but idiotic politicians like Kate Hoey and Mark Field who are deliberately disrupting and retarding TfL's efforts to improve cycling in London.
Actually, it gets worse. Not only is Kate Hoey rancidly and moronically anti-bicycle, as many actions have demonstrated in the past, she is Labour MP for an inner-city constituency who – if you can believe this – supports the hunting of wild animals with dogs. I can just about forgive a country person for this, in the delusion that somehow it is a necessary aspect of land management (as if there weren’t more efficient and more humane methods) but a city dweller?
ReplyDeleteBut you should take a look at the planning applications currently to be considered for Cornwall Rd, where that docking station was rejected with a little help from Hoey.
“Redevelopment of site to provide a 8,292sq m multi purpose community sports centre and swimming pool, 902 sq m retail/commercial/restaurant/bar floorspace (use classes A1, A2, A3 and A4), 329 residential units and underground parking for 56 cars contained within a 43 storey tower measuring 144.3m in height and a part 7, part 8 storey block with roof terraces and courtyard.”
Apart from the brutalism of a tower block getting close to the height of One Canada Square, take a look at the parking spaces. The City of London, for all its faults, has introduced a policy in its new Policy Framework for development that apart from disabled blue badge holders, the number of car parking spaces permitted in any commercial or residential building (apart from single dwelling houses) is Nil. Nada. Nix. Diddly Squat.
The City of London is apolitical. Probably, in fairness, conservative with a small c, but they positively eschew party political allegiances and give short shrift to any candidates seeking to change that. Somehow, party politicians, at least those of Labour or Tory persuasion, seem to make political capital out of supporting the car and suppressing the bicycle.
@Paul M
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. Totally agree about Hoey. Hopefully times are changing and there'll be less political cheese to be gained by supporting the car in the capital at the next election, and we'll then see politicians like Hoey either leaving politics or adopting cycle-friendly policies.