The Royal Parks has launched its first ever Movement Strategy for all eight of its parks, with proposed changes in Hyde Park. This follows widespread engagement with members of the public, businesses and statutory organisations since June 2019. The Royal Parks’ Movement Strategy sets a coherent framework to help shape and inform the policies relating to how park visitors can access, experience and move within the parks. The Strategy reflects the long-held aspiration to reduce the number of vehicles using the parks.
As a result of the current Covid-19 crisis, some of the parks have been temporarily fully closed or partially closed to motor vehicles since the end of March and the Strategy proposes to trial some of the temporary measures currently in place over a six month period.
For Hyde Park this means that the North Carriage Drive will be closed to traffic and South Carriage Drive closed to traffic on Saturdays, in addition to the regular Sunday closures. These will not formally start until the car parks are fully re-opened and The Royal Parks are set to announce further details and the precise date when changes in Hyde Park will take effect.
The trial projects include:
- In Bushy Park, restricting all through traffic with a partial road closure between Teddington and Hampton Court Gates
- In St James’s and Green Parks, closing the Mall and Constitution Hill to traffic on Saturdays, in addition to the regular Sunday closures
- In Greenwich Park, a full-time closure of the Avenue to cut through vehicle traffic
- In Hyde Park, trial closures of North Carriage Drive permanently, and South Carriage Drive on Saturdays, in addition to the regular Sunday closures
- In Richmond Park, reducing cut through motor vehicles (with more details to follow).
You can read the full implementation plan here.
