Widen Lower Ham River Walkway

I have already engaged with Councillor James Manthel on this suject but to streanthan my xomments, thought I would reiterate my suggestion on this site.

So .... The walkway from Lower Ham Road (when it starts at the river) to the start of Canbury Gardens needs to be widened

Since covid, people have taken to walking in a big way, and walking into Kingston is by far a relaxing way of doing so, it aids everyone’s health and wellbeing and has encouraged more people to walk into Kingston but unfortunatly,  not from Ham or North Kingston.

Its nice to see the Canbury Gardens walk through has now been widened to take cyclist and walkers, the same cant be said of Lower Ham Road.

Mums with buggies especially, struggle to get past others coming in the opposite direction so do people walking side by side, the current pavements are uneven and force people to walk in the mud track (or fall into a bush), widening would give pedestrians amble room to walk past each other without having to stop and let them through.

So, my suggestion is: Widening the entire pavement route from Lower Ham Road to Canbury Gardens into a 3mt wide walkway, there is able room to do so (albeit work needs to done to remove bushes, old stone walls or fall into the road) it would also tidy up the area at the same time, there is also a lot of the vegetation from the houses along that route overhanging the walkway which owners need (forced) to cut back.

I’m not a cyclist but it would help them if a defined marked cycle lane be painted on the road. It would make it safer and not force them to use the pavement.

Maybe the road could be made one way and have a designated two way cyacle lane, removing the carparking would help

I know there are certain areas of the walkway that can’t be widened for obvious reasons, but we should at least look at a 95% improvement.

I use this route at least twice a week so would benifit my wife and I, if you survayed other users I'm sure they would welcome the idea of widening the walk way and it would certainly attach more walkers.

Let Kingston Concile be seen as a caring Council.