Westminster City Council’s planning committee last night (Thursday) backed an application by Transport for London to build a station in Abingdon Street at the junction with Great College Street.

The idea had attracted support from some enthusiastic MPs and the Conservative Party deputy chairman Michael Fallon, who said it was “frustrating” that there had been no bike hire docking points built close to Whitehall and the Palace of Westminster.

Any MPs wishing to travel by the Barclays Cycle Hire vehicles have had to walk for at least 10 minutes to racks in Horseferry Road.

The committee gave unanimous backing to the plan, against the advice of city council officers.

In 2010 Labour London Assembly member Murad Qureshi criticised the council for having rejected more docking stations than any other authority but Robert Davis, cabinet member for the built environment, said: “The only reason that we may have refused more applications than elsewhere is because a greater number of applications were made to us”.

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