Sadiq Khan, London mayor, calls for car control in some areas after ramming attack

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has joined the call to ban cars in certain areas of Parliament Square after a suspected terrorist attack on Tuesday left three people injured.

Mr. Khan told BBC radio that he supported closing off certain areas with “attractive” barricades in order to prevent future attacks.

“I’ve been an advocate for a while now of part-pedestrianizing Parliament Square, but making sure we don’t lose the wonderful thing about our democracy which is people having access to parliamentarians, people being able to lobby Parliament, visitors being able to come and visit Parliament,” he said.

“You’ll have seen around Whitehall barriers which don’t look like barriers because they’ve been designed in a way to look attractive and not unattractive,” he said, the Daily Mirror reported. “It’s possible to have a design solution that meets the objectives … in relation to keeping our buildings and our people as safe as we can do, but also not losing what’s wonderful about our city which is a vibrant democracy and people can walk around our city, cycle around our city, safely.”

City officials have been calling for increased car control in Parliament Square since a man driving a silver Ford Fiesta collided with a number of cyclists and pedestrians before crashing into barriers Tuesday.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick also backed the idea, saying meetings on the issue between the mayor and city authorities would “no doubt” take place, the Daily Mirror reported.

“We are not going to give in, we are not going to just change our lifestyle, but it is important we take reasonable measures, as I think we have being doing over the last several months, to try and make sure that the most iconic sites, including those in central London, are well protected and should something happen there, that the police are able to respond very quickly with armed officers, which is exactly what we saw yesterday,” the commissioner said.