There are some things I'd thought were above criticism in London. One was the mayoral policy to promote cycling; the other was Boris Johnson himself, who has become something of a cult. Yet when I went to a meeting held by Westminster City Council to address local concerns, both were under attack. People spoke vehemently against the docking stations that are about to appear on our streets.
Readers outside London will need to know that, from May 2010, London will embrace a mass cycle-hire scheme similar to those in Paris and Montreal. Docking stations 400 of them are necessary for the taking and return of bikes, and the swiping of Oyster cards. Admirable and progressive, you might think.
But, alas, it's like the tale of the telephone box. When British Telecom removed Giles Gilbert Scott's red kiosks 30 years ago, its replacements were horrible Continental versions, bought off the peg. So it is with the new docking stations. What might fit admirably onto a boulevard by Hausmann could cause the dickens of an obstruction on a narrow London street. Why didn't Boris hold a competition? London is a creative centre, and his docking stations might, like the red telephone box, have become classics. We want British street furniture, not French hand-me-downs.
-
17 outstanding homes for sale across Britain, from under £250k to £6.5 million, as seen in Country LifeSomething for every budget in this week's round up of homes across the country that have come to market via Country Life.
-
'We started thinking: if we were going to design a bike for Aston Martin, what would it look like? And then we simply couldn’t stop': Aston's new bike has everything you could ever dream of — except a price tagThe new Aston Martin .1R bicycle, a collaboration with manufacturer J.Laverack, leaves Paul Henderson stirred rather than shaken.
