Heading to the Alexandra Palace this weekend? Carla Francombe, active travel campaigner and recent road.cc podcast guest, has raised the alarm about speeding motorists using the private road up to the iconic North London venue as a race track...
I’ve been looking into the terrible speeding and racing that goes on at Alexandra Palace and I’ve been really shocked at what I’ve found out.
Especially given that Ally Pally is hosting the Cycle Show this weekend. Do please read.
Thread 🧵 1/10 pic.twitter.com/VNHfOD7DQ1
— Carla Francome (@carlafrancome) April 20, 2023
Carla spoke to car park attendants who said the racing happens all the time and people driving fast "love the hill" due to the roundabouts at the bottom and top which create an unofficial track. One of the entrances to the road is completely closed due to road works at the minute leaving one attendant baffled at why a motorist would possibly need to visit, especially at night when the garden centre elsewhere on the private road is closed...
"I just think, why are all these cars driving here? They're clearly not cutting through are they?"
this is not a new problem. Many locals have DM’d me and said it’s been going on for years. I’ve been sent videos from May 2020 of a lot drivers in the area. It clearly has become a hobby here. Indeed, Ally Pally have tried to stop people endlessly parking on the grass.
5/10 pic.twitter.com/TWuG5fmKRy
— Carla Francome (@carlafrancome) April 20, 2023
"One local wrote to me on Monday night and said that they were outside their house doing DIY on the night I experienced the racing, and said they could hear it going on from outside their house, and that they hear it all the time," Carla explained. "So what are Ally Pally doing about all this? And that's the million dollar question. The big headline is NOT ENOUGH.
"In my opinion, and if someone is hurt when these drivers are racing up a road that cyclists are using, Ally Pally is responsible in a big way. It's a private road, they could set a speed limit of 5mph if they wanted, or a bus gate would be a good option, or at the very least speed cameras."
The replies to Carla's in-depth thread suggest others have noticed the problem too, one cyclist saying the issue has been going on for "years and years" and reporting they "nearly got run over when I cycled down there a few years back".
Starting tomorrow (April 21) and across the weekend, The Cycle Show, the UK's biggest cycling show celebrates its 20th anniversary and turns the Ally Pally into a bike-mad showcase of all things cycling, from the biggest brands and stars of the sport to custom bikes, retro MTBs and BMX, demo tracks, skills sessions and more.