• LAST week, executive councillors approved Islington Council’s transport plans for 2018-19.

Out of the £1.9m budget, they have allocated £20,000 for “secure cycle parking”. That’s enough for five bike hangars, each of which holds six bikes. Four-hundred Islington residents have requested spaces in bike hangars. At the current rate of expenditure, the last resident will get their space in 2030.

Meanwhile, in the same budget, Islington is going to spend £72,000 on “a programme of activities to provide awareness of the advantages of sustainable travel at schools in Islington. The intended audience is the children and their parents, as well as the teaching staff.”

What do you say to a parent that lives in a first-floor flat with a narrow hallway?

Islington has two bike hangars, Hackney has 325. How can two Labour- controlled boroughs, both of which claim to be pro-cycling have such very different policies?

JOHN ACKERS
Highbury Grove, N5