Community news
Take our walking and cycling survey for the Royal Docks to influence our action plan
We’re working on our action plan for making the Royal Docks better for walking and cycling. We want you to join us this September- on foot or on wheels - to tell us what’s most important to you.
The best way to hear what people walking or cycling in the Royal Docks want is to go on a walk or a bike ride together, and this is what we’ll be doing. We look forward to sparking a conversation and collecting your comments - the bad as well as the good!
We welcome you to join us on our consultation tours, one of which will be for cyclists and the other taking place on foot.
- Walking tour: 22nd September, meeting at 12 noon at Pontoon Dock DLR station.
- Cycling tour: 27th September, meeting at 5.30 pm at Cyprus DLR station.
The tours will each last one and a half hours and will take place along two of the Royal Docks’ five key connections, or stitches, which run between the north and south side of the water. The tour on foot will take place along the stitch that crosses the Connaught bridge, whereas the cyclists will cover a bit more ground along the stitch from Beckton to North Woolwich. For more information view our tour map.
Sign up to join one of the tours here - if you can’t make it, we have a survey that anyone can fill out to give your views. The deadline for completing this survey is 6th October.
The feedback from these walking and cycling tours will inform the new Royal Docks walking and cycling action plan, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
But we haven’t forgotten what you’ve told us about walking and cycling in previous consultations. The walking and cycling action plan will build on the feedback we collected when preparing our design guides for lighting, landscape, wayfinding, and accessibility and inclusivity. You can read some of that feedback here, and all of this, plus what we learn from these September tours, will influence a new action plan. We worked with 5th Studio Architects on our design guides, and they will also be working with us on the action plan for walking and cycling.
What kind of recommendations might come from this plan?
The changes set to come out of this new action plan will depend on your feedback and available budgets, but we expect to see both big and small recommendations. This means the action plan might recommend things like better lighting, new signage, public bike pumps, and more cycle parking. We’ll also be looking into the opportunity for other sustainable transport modes, such as scooter rentals and car clubs. Interactive elements we might consider include cycle maintenance sessions and cycle experience days. Lastly, the action plan might also suggest more significant infrastructure changes like more cycle lanes along roads and restructuring zebra crossings to make them safer for pedestrians.
In addition to listening to you, we will be taking on board the advice of Newham Council, local organisations such as Newham Cyclists, speaking to developers and local stakeholders, and referencing best practices for accessibility from national experts as we make our plans. Everything we do is about making the spaces around the Royal Docks more accessible and a nicer place to be.
We hope that being on-site with you will help us get a better feel for what is needed to make the Royal Docks a better place to walk or cycle in the near future. We look forward to seeing you there.
