Camden – Bloomsbury and Kings Cross Wards

As described in the previous chapter, the Bloomsbury and Kings Cross wards of Camden were chosen as sample sites for their low car ownership, relatively high incomes and low car ownership amongst home owners – all factors which were expected to yield a high proportion of Carfree Choosers. Before making a final decision on the sampling method and design of the planned survey it was decided to explore the local context, through an observational visit and review of specific literature.

Background: Planning and Transport in London

With a population of 7.5 million (TfL 2008) London is considerably larger than any of the cities described in the previous chapter, but there are some similarities in the planning and transport contexts. Following many years of decline, the population of London began to recover, earlier than most British cities (Champion 2004), rising 10% between 1981 and 2006. The changes were strongest in Inner London, where population rose by 16% over the same period (TfL 2008). In Camden these changes were encouraged by planning policies favouring urban intensification (Williams 2000).

As discussed in Section 4.3 Car ownership in London is lower than any other British city and in common with other cities, the lowest levels of ownership are concentrated in the inner areas, as illustrated in Figure 6-1:

Figure 6-1 Households Without Cars in London by Borough

Unlike other UK cities, public transport is both regulated and benefits from a general subsidy (both the level and conditions of subsidy are more limited elsewhere). This increased by 40% between 2000/1, when the Mayor and Assembly took over devolved powers, and 2004/5 (Knowles,

Abrantes 2008). This increase was made partly to support the introduction of the congestion charge in 2003, although the net revenue from the charge made only a small contribution to the cost. Although the conditions are not as straightforward as in the German cities, integrated ticketing is available through the (prepayment) Oyster Card and (off-peak) Travel Card.

Assisted by these policies (and other economic factors) public transport passenger kilometres increased by 50% between 1991/2 and 2006/7 (TfL 2008, excluding national rail) while patronage was falling elsewhere in England and Wales (Knowles, Abrantes 2008).

Figure 6-2 shows a level of car use comparable to the European cities in Chapter 3. The shares for public transport and walking are higher than any of the European cities, although the

Commission for Integrated Transport (2001) has suggested the latter may reflect differences between national surveys in the reporting of walking trips. Such differences cannot explain the substantial differences in the share of cycling, however: between five and twenty times higher in

Figure 6-2 London Modal Shares, workday trips.

The Borough of Camden

A different picture emerges when Inner London is considered separately. Trip counters in four locations in Camden showed the share of bicycles more than doubling from 2001 to 11.4% of movements (not including pedestrians) in 2008 (Camden LB 2008). Figure 6-3 shows the modal shares for travel to work from the 2001 Census, before the introduction of the congestion charge;

public transport was already the predominant mode and car use was almost as low as in the European carfree areas.

Figure 6-3 Camden Travel to Work by Mode.

39 26 2

31

London Modal Shares (2007)

Source: TfL (2008)

Car

Public Transport Cycling

Walking

18

57 4 18

Camden Journeys to Work (2001)

Source: Census Table CS121

Car

Public Transport Cycling

Walking

The London Borough of Camden has been pursuing a policy of restricting residential parking for some time. By 2004 all of the borough’s highways were covered by a Controlled Parking Zone. In tandem with this policy, Camden has implemented over 2,500 mainly small ‘car free’ housing units, distributed across 287 sites (Camden LB 2005). ‘Car free housing’ is defined in Camden by a Section 106 planning condition precluding the occupiers in perpetuity from applying for a resident’s parking permit.

Observational Visit

Figure 6-4 Map of Bloomsbury and Kings Cross Wards

An observational visit to the Bloomsbury and Kings Cross wards was carried out by bicycle on an afternoon in March 2007. It was initially planned to look for predominantly residential areas with significant proportions of single households living in individual houses, as these would be common in most other residential areas elsewhere in the UK. This proved unattainable. Various

commercial (including university) uses spread across most of the two wards. The only extensive concentrations of purely residential properties were council or housing association estates such as those shown in Figure 6-5 and Figure 6-6.

Figure 6-5 Peabody Trust Estate, Bloomsbury Figure 6-6 Council flats, Kings Cross Ward

There were very few houses occupied by single households. Terraces of older town houses were distributed across much of the two wards. Some had been converted into flats (Figure 6-7).

Others had changed to commercial uses; in some streets and some houses there appeared to be a mixture (Figure 6-8).

Figure 6-7 Terraces converted to flats, Bernard St., Bloomsbury Ward

Figure 6-8 Mixed commercial/residential, Doughty Street, Kings Cross Ward

Camden Borough Council (T. Pancha 2007, personal communication March 14) cited two recent

‘car free developments’ in Bloomsbury: a student residency on Woburn Place and the recently redeveloped Brunswick (Figure 6-9). This was originally completed in 1972 as a council housing and pedestrianised shopping area. It had 560 flats, mainly one or two bedroom, of which around 50 were now privately leased from the Council (The Brunswick Project 2007). There was a two storey car park beneath the Centre with a total of 172 spaces, some of which were allocated for non-residential purposes.

Figure 6-9 The Brunswick, Bloomsbury Ward

Figure 6-10 Gordon Square, Bloomsbury, surrounded by University College London

Observation of estate agents’ windows and properties for sale online illustrated the problems of affordability which were to feature in the survey responses and interview comments. The advertised price for a two bedroom flat in The Brunswick was £425,000, for a four storey town house in Kings Cross: £925,000. This suggested that owners of the few houses remaining in individual household occupation would be atypically wealthy – a key difference between Central London and elsewhere.

The two wards fall almost entirely within the congestion charging zone. A mixture of residents’ and metered parking was available on most of the streets, apart from the ‘red routes’ (arterial roads where parking is banned) some other main thoroughfares and narrow side-streets. The restriction on the residents’ parking spaces only applied from 8.30 am until 6.30pm on weekdays and 1.30pm on Saturdays. Many of these spaces were unoccupied during the day. Illegal parking had clearly been a problem on some housing estates where signs threatened clamping and impounding of offending vehicles with release fees totalling several hundred pounds.

There was an extensive but rather disjointed network of cycle routes, mainly signposted along quieter roads. The number of cyclists on the roads appeared relatively high by British standards, though not as high as the European cities described in the previous chapter. Some of the

relatively few segregated sections of the London Cycle Network run through Bloomsbury. Both the design quality and standards of maintenance of these sections compared unfavourably with the facilities viewed in the European cities.

The two wards are served by six tube stations on different combinations of six different lines; the mainline and Thameslink stations are located on the Northern border of Kings Cross Ward.

Everywhere within the two wards could be considered within reasonable walking distance of more