This blog is about family travel around the world without leaving the UK. We do this in a bid to be less polluting and tackle climate change while at the same time keeping a global outlook. This post takes a quick peek at Walthamstow Village, E17 which over the past year has been transformed so much it's now known as Little Holland. Here's why...
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| Four cafes, a newsagent, Spanish deli, antiques shop and pub make the heart of Walthamstow Village a nice place to linger. |
Little Holland turns out to be just an enjoyable six mile cycle from my house, in what used to be traffic-blighted, rat-run ridden Walthamstow Village.
For the past decade I haven’t been to Walthamstow much – it’s nice, but my two friends who used to live there decided to move to country towns a while back. Each time I visited them I remember thinking, this place is fab but there’s a huge amount of traffic on these cute little streets.
But that’s all changed.
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| The reservoirs and sewage works along Coppermill Lane, which leads to Blackhorse Road, are a good place to spot giant birds. |
Thanks to a £30 million grant the residential area around Walthamstow Village has been modal calmed – which means that cars no longer have priority. Cyclists are still allowed along the roads and pedestrians in many places have become king. It seems so much nicer now – you can hear passers-by talking, kids are scooting around safely along what used to be pavements half-blocked by vehicles parked erratically. I remember my NCT mum friend having to wheel her buggy into the road frequently in order to get along the pavement! Now she’d love it – there’s room to walk hand-in-hand and the rat runners are just about gone.
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| Pollution-eating cycleway near Walthamstow tube (which also boasts Brompton bike hire and commuter cycle storage). This pavement allegedly locks nitrogen oxides - one of the pollutants from car exhausts. They've had smog-eating pavements in the Netherlands since 2013. |
£30 million seems like a huge amount, but across the UK apparently only £1-2 per person is spent on cycling and walking - even though a Parliamentary committee recommended it should be more like £10 per person.
In comparison in Holland it’s around £20 per person. No wonder more Dutch people cycle!
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| Islington cyclists on a tour of Walthamstow. The 12-mile round trip can be made on a multitude of quiet routes including the edge of Walthamstow Marshes near Coppermill Bridge. |
Congratulations to Waltham Forest cyclists for achieving this. If you live in an area that could be made more like Holland, then have a look at theWaltham Forest cyclists’ website for top tips and FAQs about how to create quiet ways, village centres and improve road safety.
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| The first cowslip I've seen in 2016 - out in February at the Islington Ecology Centre (the start and finish point of Islington Cyclists ride to view Mini Holland). |
The route from Islington to Walthamstow is blessedly flat (there is one hill near Springfield Park), just like Holland. And the day I did this ride the wind was blessedly behind us - may that be your experience on any long ride.
Islington Cyclists Action Group want quietways across the borough - and if they succeed, that will be another step towards making London a little more like Holland. I'm all for going Dutch if it means you can use roads more safely and hear what people are saying...