Hammersmith & Fulham Council Leader, Cllr Stephen Cowan, says he’d love to see the Hammersmith Flyover gone and Hammersmith’s link to the river restored, and plans to set up a Residents Working Party on the issue.
But he doubts whether what is presently being considered by TfL is good enough, he asks, “is that what’s on offer with the initial proposals to sink the Hammersmith Flyover and a part of the A4 road?”
Cllr Cowan spoke at the recent HammersmithLondon event held to review proposals for tunneling the A4 under Hammersmith.
During the meeting residents were told that, while the Mayor of London has said he is going to ‘tunnelise’ the flyover within four years, he and the government want this scheme to be self-financing – using development on the land released by the removal of the flyover to fund the tunnel.
Cllr Cowan says: ”It would be amazing to build a new, environmentally sustainable town centre, fit for the twenty second century, with thousands of new homes for Londoners, a new park and new businesses bringing jobs and opportunity for all. But if all of this needs to self-financing we could see residents suffering up to twenty years of large scale, high-density development ending up with little of the benefits we all hope for.
“On a project like this, it’s critical to recognise that politicians and officials are only ever custodians of the area we serve. So we are going to set up a Hammersmith Residents’ Working Party that will go through all of the options. Then all of us together will consider how, and even if, we might opt to move forward on any of these schemes.”
