Cycling czar tells cyclists: 'If you want improvements, keep fighting for them'

The London Mayor's cycling czar Andrew Gilligan has called on cyclists to "keep fighting" for improvements to cycling facilities given the stiff opposition projects are getting.

Gilligan, writing in The Guardian, said that opponents of schemes such as the proposed superhighway from Swiss Cottage to the West End - the consultation closed yesterday - that meant "fractional" reductions in space for cars were comparing it to the Blitz, which killed 25,000 people.

"The idea is to restore one of the world's great parks [Regent's Park] from a rat-run for through-traffic to what Nash designed it as, a place of recreation and tranquility," he maintained. "The scheme would also remove a particularly hideous and dangerous gyratory at Swiss Cottage." He describes a list of complaints around a "largely-imagined scheme".

He used the scheme as an example of how, "if you want cycling improvements, you have to keep fighting for them... We in City Hall cannot keep it going on our own. It is only the overwhelming support of ordinary Londoners that has brought the cycling programme this far." He said the current candidates for City Hall might only hear "the loud voices of the naysayers".