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One of east London’s busiest and most dangerous cyclist commuter routes could be cleared of through traffic under plans announced today.

The announcement from Islington council came only hours before a proposed demonstration backed by three women who each lost a leg in lorry crashes along the route.

Victoria Lebrec, Julie Dinsdale and Sarah Doone have accused the council of five years of inaction and failing to prevent further casualties along Old Street and Clerkenwell Road, despite receiving £900,000 from Transport for London to make improvements.

There have been 193 crashes resulting in 210 casualties, including 24 seriously injured people, along the east-west corridor in the last five years.

Several hours after being approached by the Evening Standard, Claudia Webbe, the council’s executive member for transport, said it was “developing plans to close Old Street and Clerkenwell Road to through traffic”.

A feasibility study was said to have been completed last month and construction is planned to start in January 2021, and be completed by December that year. Work will be co-ordinated with the redesign of Old Street roundabout, which begins in earnest tomorrow night.

TfL will close the north-west arm of the Sixties diamond-shaped roundabout, which will remove the gyratory and re-route traffic via a two-way “loop” around a peninsula-style central island in a bid to improve cyclist and pedestrian safety.

Campaigners from Active Travel Now and Ms Lebrec had planned to form a human “segregated cycle lane” along Old Street this afternoon to demonstrate what is needed to make the route safe.

More than 1,000 riders an hour use the route during the morning peak. It forms part of the “central London cycling grid” prioritised by TfL, but is described by cyclists as “intimidating and dangerous”.

Ms Lebrec, who lost her left leg in 2014 when she was hit by a left-turning lorry at the junction with St John Street, said: “The suffering I went through was awful, and it pains me that nothing was done to make the road safer.”

Ms Dinsdale, who lost her right leg when she was hit by a Tesco HGV at the junction with Central Street in 2015, said: “I was working as an NHS midwife and was competing in marathons and cyclo-cross events. What happened to me had a devastating impact on my life.

“It really worries me that there have still been no safety improvements made to the road layout.”

Active Travel Now said it “cautiously” welcomed the announcement “as after our last demo in 2017 the council made commitments to move forward but quickly returned to inaction”.