Councils tend to record stuff and I thought it might be worth having a look to see what records there are pertaining to these traffic islands. It turns out there is information recorded and it's an interesting read. 1/n https://twitter.com/danielmgmoylan/status/1314096737234100225

We need to cast our minds back to the heady days of when come bloke called Boris Johnson was the Mayor of London and part of his cycling vision for London included the development of the "Central London Grid" - essentially a group of back street cycling routes. 2/n

It's not easy to find full details, but there was a map of the generality of the proposed grid. I don't know exactly where this was published, but here is a map of works due to be finished by December 2016.

OK, not wonderfully clear, so lets zoom in to, I don't know, the area around these traffic islands. Essentially, there was a route from the south along Kensington Court which turned right onto Kensington High Street and then left into Kensington Palace Gardens 4/n

That's a pretty tricky pair of turns for someone on a cycle to make and at this location, the turn right from the south would have been across two lanes of westbound traffic - well, a wide lane which wasn't marked as two lanes, but people drove as if it were two lanes 5/n

When RBKC was developing its designs for this Central London Grid section, this was clearly picked up as an issue and so a means of helping people cycling to turn right was developed. Here it is on a 2015 drawing 6/n https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/sites/default/files/atoms/files/Kensington%20High%20Street.pdf

Yes, three little islands. To be fair to Lord M, the drawing calls all three of them refuges (well one is a refuse), but in fact they are just traffic islands because where are the dropped kerbs for pedestrians on each side of the street. 7/n

The general claims around knowing what these were for and getting them put in to help people cross the road are looking a little shaky. Anyhow, you'll have seen the the islands give waiting space for people cycling to turn right and the 2.4m width offers protection. 8/n

The idea is, you find a gap in the traffic to get into the centre (protected by the islands) and then you find another gap in which to finish the turn before turning left. 9/n

The planned route headed north into Kensington Palace Gardens (a private road owned by the Crown Estate). The scheme went out to consultation in January 2016. The decision on the scheme was to be a Key Executive Decision made by the cabinet member. 10/n

It's hard to search decisions on the council's website (there is a limited history on the search tool), but a Google search turned up the ED paper which was entered onto the Forward Plan (so people can see what is coming up) on 16th May 2016 and the paper was published on 11/n

14th July 2016. It makes for further interesting reading. A long story short. Because of resident objections from Kensington Palace Gardens this section of the route was essentially abandoned on the basis that there would be no wayfinding for it 12/n

https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/sites/default/files/atoms/files/Mitre%20Way%20to%20Ledbury%20Rd%20and%20Harrington%20Gdns%20to%20Bayswater%20Rd%20KDR.pdf

So, like the route, people cycling would be abandoned on Kensington High Street and only those in the know would realise they can go through Kensington Palace Gardens (which has car park style barriers). The ED suggests that this was with TfL's agreement which is very poor. 13/n

So what of the islands which are not refuges? Well, the report mentions these too. The ED is written by the council's Director for Transport & Highways who says that he would put in temporary rubber *traffic islands* so they can be monitored before putting in 14/n

permanent *traffic islands*. There was never a proposal for measures to assist pedestrians at this location on Kensington High Street. The ED covers comments made at consultation stage and there is no record of comments or support made by the then Cllr M in the ED. 15/n

Today, the council has a Quietways Map (April 2019) and lo and behold, Kensington Palace Gardens is a glaring gap in the network to the north where it meets Westminster. 16/n

https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/sites/default/files/atoms/files/Quietway%20cycle%20routes.pdf

This gap, how the route was designed, how decisions were made are the real issue heres; but at least with trying to protect people cycling on Kensington High Street the council is rolling things out. I don't know the details, I've not seen anything. 17/n
https://www.rbkc.gov.uk/timetable-confirmed-kensington-cycle-lane

However, if the location which sparked this "discussion" is genuinely in need of a crossing (and I can see that walking between Kensington Court and Kensington Palace Gardens might be a good thing to do), then maybe a zebra crossing would be appropriate so it gives 18/n

priority to people walking and it will have proper dropped kerbs and be fully accessible - that's reasonable. However, to claim the traffic islands were provided is in fact demonstrably incorrect. Still, I'm apparently the fraud. 19/END