Many hotel guests are greeted with complimentary chocolates and mints on their pillows. But an Archway bed and breakfast is now doling out free earplugs. The reason? The gyratory, of course.
St John’s Bed and Breakfast, in St John’s Way, is located at the heart of Transport for London’s (TfL) gyratory overhaul, which came into force in December.
As part of the pedestrianisation of Archway town centre, the carriageway outside the hotel has become two-way.
But Sinead Geary, who has run the bed and breakfast for five years, says it has only succeeded in “moving all the traffic” from one place to another.
She has moved her guestrooms to the back so they don’t suffer the gyratory’s “unbearable” noise.
She said: “I now sleep at the front of the house as it’s not fair to make guests pay when it’s so noisy outside.
“Fortunately, the noise isn’t bad at the back. Still, I leave earplugs in all the rooms with a note saying: ‘Just in case!’”
She added: “I don’t get what TfL was trying to achieve, apart from laying a really large piece of pavement [with the pedestrianisation of the town centre].
“They haven’t done anything to improve Archway. All they have done is make people angry, and in my case lose sleep! Sometimes you feel like a very small person with no voice.”
Sinead isn’t the only business owner disgruntled at the gyratory. Last month, Chris Sparks, landlord of the nearby Charlotte Despard, promised to superglue his face to the road outside his pub and “bring London to a standstill for three days”.
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