Kensington and Chelsea council has opened a consultation to create cycle lanes on Fulham Road and Kensington High Street, but they will be advisory only — not the partially segregated cycle lanes that were removed in 2021.

The painted lanes being proposed by the council would be marked out with a broken painted line and would measure 1.5m in width, and the proposals cover Addison Road to Earl’s Court Road and Kensington Palace Gardens to Queen’s Gate in Kensington High Street.

Although the proposals do not involve any changes to waiting or loading restrictions, the Highway Code advises that drivers should not drive or park in an advisory cycle lane marked by a broken white line unless it is unavoidable.

Although an advisory cycle lane is better than nothing, it’s a far cry from the segregated cycle lane introduced with Transport for London (TfL) funding in October 2020 during the pandemic. That lane was controversially removed just two months later, which lead to a call for them to refund the money back to TfL and a court action, which was lost, to force its reinstatement.

A lot of the complaints were about road congestion after it was narrowed to create space for the cycle lane, but countering that is the fact that a lot of space occupied by the cycle lane is used as a car park during the day — so the road for motorists wasn’t reduced in width anyway.

What was lost was parking and delivery facilities on the High Street, which could have been designed around given time to come up with alternative options.

Since the huge fuss over the removal of the temporary cycle lanes in late 2020, there’s been a campaign to have them restored.

The advisory lanes are far from ideal, but if they get the go-ahead, and there is the same increase in cycling that happened when the last cycle lanes were in place, then it helps to prove the case that permanent fully segregated cycling lanes are a good idea and should be implemented.

For that reason, while many will quite rightly object to the painted white lane as inadequate, it can be looked at as a small but necessary step towards a permanent cycle lane being installed.

The consultation is here.

Cllr Cem Kemahli, lead member for planning, place and environment, said: “We know there are many competing calls for limited road space and lots of opinions when it comes to how we use our historic roads. This is why we are giving people a chance to have their say on these proposals, which have been designed to minimise impact on traffic flow but also provide space for cyclists.”