Meath Gardens is a beloved small park that serves as the backyard for many nearby families and residents. The park's play area and green spaces are bustling with children playing. The current path crosses through areas where children play and it has also served as a cycle route since the creation of the Meath Gardens foot bridge in 2010. 

While this development has brought more accessibility to the area, it has also unfortunately created serious safety issues for children by speeding cyclists including a number of accidents with children being hit by bikes. Last May a 7-year old girl was hit by a speeding cyclist and suffered a broken leg and shin and was hospitalised for three days.

Meath Gardens has also become a magnet for Anti-Social Behaviour by youths who race their motorbikes on the footpath at all hours of the day. These scooters are incredibly loud and pose serious safety concerns as they have had a number of near misses with pedestrians and pets and it is only a matter of time before a serious accident occurs...

Tower Hamlets Council (specifically the Active Travel Team) are proposing to introduce even more cycle traffic to Meath Gardens through the Quietway6 proposal, which would cut straight through Meath Gardens. The 'Quietway' cycle scheme that is overseen by TfL and is meant for less confident cyclists who can avoid larger roads.  Unfortunately, Tower Hamlets did not take into account our context (serious child accident, motorbike/ASB issues, children use pathway to play, small size of park and pathway) before proposing the route. In fact, of the dozens of Quietway proposals across London, Meath Gardens is by far the smallest park in which a Quietway crosses directly through it; other Quietway proposals tend to use the perimeter of larger parks/commons, or in the small number of cases where they do cut across the parks, these are parks are not heavily bordered by residential properties as we are in Meath Gardens. 

The Quietway6 proposal is also stalling already agreed plans to install chicanes to prevent motorbikes from accessing Meath Gardens.

This petition is NOT anti-cycle and it is NOT anti-Quietway. The fact is there are a number of viable alternatives to this small section of the proposed Quietway6 that the Council has not investigated and we urge them to do so and avoid making Meath Gardens a thoroughfare. 

Our safety, including the delay in installing the chicanes and our right to quiet enjoyment, should not be subordinate to creating additional paths for cyclists. All community proposals need to look at the overall community benefit to be truly effective and for this particular proposal there are serious safety risks.

The Council has stated that they will use safeguarding measures such as rumble strips to slow down cyclists. However, Meath Gardens is heavily used by families taking children to school and rumble strips will have an adverse impact on parents who cycle with baby seats, children on micro scooters and anyone with a buggy/pram.

We are opposed to any proposal that increases cycling or creates dual use of pathways already used by children as this would make play impossible for parents to police. 

Despite the support of our Ward Councillors, Amy Whitelock-Gibbs and Sirajul Islam and the Tower Hamlets Parks Team, the Active Travel Team within the Council have not been very responsive to our concerns and have only offered two weeks to many residents to respond to the Consultation.

While creating quiet paths for cyclists is commendable, we urge TfL and Tower Hamlets Council to use one of the many alternatives available and avoid Meath Gardens so that local children have a safer environment to play in.