TfL used ‘made-up’ data to justify multi-million pound roundabout upgrade

Father Brandes stands on an isolated peninsula of pavement, surrounded by tarmac
Father Simon Brandes, vicar of St Nicholas Church in Chiswick, stands near the roundabout - Geoff Pugh for The Telegraph

Transport for London (TfL) has been forced to issue an apology after using “made-up” data to justify a multi-million pound upgrade to a major roundabout.

Sadiq Khan’s transport authority insisted that Hogarth Roundabout in Chiswick needed “increased space for walking and cycling” to help achieve the mayor’s goal of “eliminating death and serious injury” from the capital’s roads.

An online consultation said the £5 million works – which included reducing speed limits from 40mph to 30mph – were necessary due to the high number of motorcyclists injured at that spot on the busy A4.

Official documents claimed that TfL statisticians had found that during just 18 months – from January 2022 to June 2023 – there were 25 slight, and five serious, motorcycle collisions at the roundabout.

Penny Rees, TfL’s head of Healthy Streets Investment, told the consultation: “These proposed changes will help reduce road danger at Hogarth Roundabout, particularly for motorcyclists.”

Wearing his clerical collar, Father Brandes poses with the crenellated church exterior visible behind him
Father Brandes pictured in front of St Nicholas Church - Geoff Pugh for The Telegraph

Chiswick residents, surprised by the suggestion that almost two motorcyclists were being injured every month, submitted Freedom of Information requests for accurate data.

They established that TfL had inflated the motorcycle collision rate tenfold, getting the time period and the number of motorcyclists involved completely wrong.

Instead of 25 slight, and five serious, motorcyclist injuries, there were in fact only five slight, and one serious, injuries at the roundabout.

And, rather than being over 18 months, the six motorcycle collisions took place over 36 months, double the time frame.

It meant that the true motorcycle collision rate was 0.17 per month, not the 1.7 that TfL had claimed. TfL updated its online consultation with the accurate data and apologised for the “error”.

It has now extended the consultation by one week, until Sept 12, after which it will decide whether to approve the scheme.

A ‘scandalous’ mistake

Jack Emsley, Hounslow Conservative councillor for the Chiswick Homefields ward, said the mistake was “scandalous” and had “eroded trust” in TfL.

The councillor said he wholeheartedly backed measures to make roads safer, adding: “This means, though, that we need to be able to trust the information given to us by TfL when being consulted on issues like these.

“It’s a real scandal that TfL got its figures so incredibly wrong for this consultation, and seemingly only corrected them following a Freedom of Information request from local residents.

“Sadly, inaccurate statistics now seem to be a pattern across a number of TfL consultations, and it is eroding trust in the organisation.

“I don’t know how TfL arrived at its original figures, which were so inaccurate that they look almost made-up, but I do know that it now calls into question the reasoning behind the initial proposals.”

‘Floating’ bus stop errors

In June, TfL was forced to apologise and update an official safety review into the dangers posed to pedestrians by cyclists on “floating” bus stops after an investigation into its data revealed “glaring omissions”.

TfL had initially claimed that only four pedestrians were injured – two seriously – between 2020 and 2022 at bus stops where a cycle lane runs between the stop and the pavement, and a zebra crossing is installed in the hope that cyclists will give way.

However, analysis by The Telegraph and the National Federation of the Blind of the UK established that there were in fact six collisions, three serious, at the city’s floating bus stops.

Referring to the Hogarth Roundabout “errors”, Ms Rees from TfL told The Telegraph: “We’re determined to make London’s roads safer and it remains the case that there is an urgent need to tackle danger at Hogarth Roundabout, which ranks amongst the capital’s top 10 per cent of junctions in terms of road safety risk.

“The decision to proceed with a consultation for the scheme was based on this analysis, rather than the figures that were published in our consultation materials.

“We apologise for publishing incorrect figures and we have made everyone who had responded to the consultation aware.”


Case study: St Nicholas Church, Chiswick


For more than 600 years, St Nicholas Church has been the first choice for weddings and funerals for many West London parishioners.

But now the Chiswick church, nestled yards from the banks of the River Thames, is under threat of losing that status – and even its congregation – from proposals to force wedding cars and hearses through a near-unnavigable hairpin bend.

Father Simon Brandes believes that plans by Transport for London to remodel a roundabout will make access to his church “so extremely difficult” that only an “old-fashioned Mini” could make the turn with ease.

TfL plans to close Church Street leading to St Nicholas Church as part of a scheme it says will increase space for walking and cycling and make the Hogarth Roundabout on the Great West Road safer.

Father Brandes perches on a pew in the church, with its high stained-glass altar window behind him
Father Brandes in St Nicholas Church, sited near the roundabout - Geoff Pugh for The Telegraph

“We are the oldest church in Chiswick in a beautiful location,” Fr Brandes told The Telegraph. “What frightens me is people will go elsewhere because so many drive here and the turn is so oblique and dangerous.

“Vehicles like hearses or wedding cars are simply too long to make the proposed bend in one go. They will have to inch their way round with a four point turn. I fear we will lose many funerals and weddings.”

Fr Brandes, who is 62 and has been the priest at the Grade II listed church for 17 years, also worries many of his flock could “go elsewhere” on Sundays because they drive to services.

Opposition from local groups

The Old Chiswick Protection Society will also oppose the TfL plans, particularly as the existing Church Street route is better protected from floods compared to other roads.

The society is expected to warn that TfL’s plans for the roundabout, near the Fuller’s Brewery, will cause “unacceptable harm” to the community and conservation area.

Russell Harris KC, the president of the society, said: “We think the plans are unworkable. We have had a highways consultant look at it who has come to the same conclusion.”

He added that flooding from the Thames leaves some roads impassable for up to 150 days a year, making Church Street the only way to access the area, something town planners recognised centuries ago.

“Closing Church Street is our main issue,” Mr Harris said. “There’s no justification for it. The alternative hairpin bend has not been properly tested and will not be suitable for hearses and refuse collection vehicles.”