£10m to improve the A316 in Richmond upon Thames

Richmond Council has announced that the A316 is to be improved thanks to £10m of cycling funding from the Mayor of London. An additional £2m will also be provided to deliver cycling links between the A316 and Twickenham.

Councillor Stephen Speak, Richmond Council Cabinet Member for Highways, said:

“This is long awaited good news. The A316 improvements should be a real help for local cyclists using a major borough artery and the Twickenham work will improve cycling connectivity to the town. I look forward to working with TfL to turn these ideas into reality.”

Last year, Richmond upon Thames was one of five shortlisted London boroughs to miss out on funding as part of Mayor of London Boris Johnson's 'Mini-Hollands' initiative. However, it seems the Mayor’s cycling adviser, Andrew Gilligan, was nevertheless impressed by the bid.

Speaking at the time, Transport for London's director of surface transport, Leon Daniels, said that he had been ‘blown away by the ambition and scale of the proposals from boroughs across London’, adding that all eight finalists were ‘of exceptional quality’.

TfL will be leading the work to improve the A316 and the council have said that they ‘will be looking to them to fully engage with residents and local cycling groups to ensure there is a thorough approach to creating a suitable cycle route and good interconnections with existing facilities.’

In July of last year, 40-year-old Henry Lang from Twickenham was killed while cycling on the A316 through Richmond after being hit by a refuse lorry. Later in the year, proposed changes to Richmond roundabout, where the incident took place, were described as having 'no significant safety benefit' for cyclists by campaigners.