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Sadiq Khan’s new cycling czar today insisted that London was safe for cyclists - despite three riders being killed on the capital’s streets in recent days.

Will Norman described a week of carnage on the roads – in which two pedestrians also died – as “devastating” for Londoners.

But he insisted he only rode a bike and allowed his own children, aged six and nine, to cycle because he truly believed the streets were safe.

The Mayor himself has confessed that he refused to allow his own teenage daughters to cycle on roads in London because of concerns over lack of safety.

Mr Norman, the capital’s first Walking and Cycling Commissioner, suggested politicians had for too long focused on cycling safety while the fate of pedestrians had been “neglected”.

Latest figures show there were 66 pedestrian fatalities in London in 2015. Nine cyclists died that year, and the same number were killed cycling in the capital last year.

Last week Anita Szucs, 30, was fatally injured in an apparent hit-and-run by a car driver in Edmonton, Karla Roman, 32, died after being dragged under a coach in Whitechapel Road and father-of-two Ben Wales, 32, was killed in a HGV crash in Silvertown.

In his first interview since starting at City Hall on Monday, Mr Norman told the Standard: “I’ve been cycling in London for 15 years and I honestly believe that cycling in London is safe.

“I don’t think I would cycle around, and my kids wouldn’t cycle around, London without it being safe.”

“It could be safer, of course, but it’s also about how people feel… A lot of it is about how can we can show more people that it is safe.”

He added: “[Last week] shows why this work is so important but also that we have got to work harder and put more into this to make sure we don’t have more weeks like that.”

Mr Norman, 40, former global partnerships director at Nike, said pedestrians, unlike cyclists, had been “ignored” by transport planners for too long.

“There hasn’t been the same advocacy and campaigning around pedestrian safety in the past – it’s something that has been neglected by politicians and policy making,” he said.

“Given the statistics around pedestrian fatalities that is something that has to change.”

He ruled out banning lorries from central London at rush hour – “we need freight” - to help drive down casualties but wants to speed up plans to get the most dangerous ones off the roads by 2020.

However, he vowed to prioritise working with councils tackle cycle accident hotspots such as the Lambeth Bridge roundabout which was last week named Britain’s most dangerous junction.

“We don’t want to be repeating the tragedies of last week so it is a priority to reduce the road deaths and where there are hotspots we need to pay particular attention,” he said.

Mr Norman will have to work with the boroughs – some of which do not share City Hall’s enthusiasm for cycling – to get more cycle routes built and to bring in more 20 mph zones.

He is convinced that a “face to face” approach to solving problems is the way to overcome hurdles but insists he can be tough if he needs to.

“All my career has been spent building partnerships with people who don’t necessarily have the same goals, but very often you can figure out ways around this,” he said.

Mr Khan has committed around £145 million a year to cycling – double Boris Johnson – and although the previous regime struggled to do so Mr Norman is “really confident” he can spend the money.

He has no plans to drop any of the cycle superhighways promised by the Tory mayor.

The CS4 route from Tower Bridge to Greenwich and CS9 from Olympia to Hounslow will go out for consultation this year while work on the CS11 route will start at Swiss Cottage.

A decision on the approach to Regent’s Park will be taken in the summer, with the current plan being to close the gates at certain times of day.

Mr Norman promised to open up more cycle superhighways across the capital, with a route from Hammersmith in West London into the city centre one “obvious gap” on the map.

He was also prepared to “tweak” existing routes in response to cyclists’ concerns that some were not operating as well as they might.

“We are learning from what is happening… but we need to keep on improving things, we can’t just sit back and say there’s a blue cycle lane and that’s it done.”

He is conscious of the anger some motorists feel at the traffic jams caused by digging up the roads for new cycling infrastructure.

“There is a real risk of bikelash – a kind of back lash against cyclists – and that’s why it’s so important to bring people along with us. It isn’t just about addressing the needs of the cyclist.”

He suggested some of the new infrastructure had been brought in “too quickly” and that he hoped to get more work done at night, to ease congestion during the day.

He conceded some cyclists behaved badly – going through red lights or riding on the pavement - but said there were “anti-social” road users on every mode of transport.

Mr Norman denied that quietways – miles of safer routes – were “just a nice picture of a bike painted on the road” amid criticism they were often too busy to be effective.

He said they were vital to getting more Londoners onto bikes. “It’s quite difficult to talk about as one single thing. It’s important to look at each route in isolation.”

He defended funding events like the Women’s Cycling Tour, which will cost around £250,000, claiming it would help persuade more women to get on their bikes.

A key part of his new role will be to persuade Londoners of the health benefits of walking and cycling. He admits air pollution is a big problem.

But he added: “Overall the evidence shows that the benefits of being active more often outweigh the pollution.”