Kingston Council’s former lead member for transport has claimed the current designs for the £32m mini-Holland project are “very different” to the ones he saw when it was approved.

Simon James, who lost his Beverley ward seat in May, was a senior member of the Liberal Democrat administration that oversaw the successful bid for a share of the Mayor of London’s £100m cycling initiative last March.

But after new drawings showed a drastically scaled-down vision for the first phase of works in Portsmouth Road, cyclists raised concerns the scheme was unsafe.

At the moment the plans show about 25 per cent of the road separated for cyclists and the rest made up of painted cycle lanes. If the present design went ahead, Portsmouth Road would have a 2m wide cycle lane running down each side of the road and a 6m lane for two-way traffic with no central line. The average car is almost 2m wide, meaning traffic would be travelling at about 50cm from the edge of the cycle lane.

Mr James, himself a keen cyclist, said: “I have seen a couple of images and it looks very different to the original scheme we had planned. We planned 100 per cent segregation for cyclists.”

Simon James (left) former lead member for transport and keen cyclist

A consultation on the Portsmouth Road works closes on February 18.

Enabling work is proposed to start on April 15 with construction work planned to start in July 2015.

Richard Lewis, benefit and realisation manager for the mini-Holland project, said: “Great change is made in small ways. In my opinion a lot of cycling schemes have been over engineered.

“Studies have shown that removing the central line in the road makes drivers pass cyclists much more slowly. Having said that, everyone has to remember we are still at consultation stage and we are here to listen to residents’ concerns and bend to them.

“At the moment what we are hearing is that people want more segregation.”

Transport for London, which is paying for the project, will not release the funds until it is satisfied with Kingston’s plans, he added.

He said: “We are also at the mercy of TfL and [cycling commissioner] Andrew Gilligan always wants more segregation for cyclists. They are providing the money and if they say jump we will jump.”