Council spends £800 a day on cleaning first 'shared' road

London's first "shared space" road is costing nearly £800 every working day to clean while council bosses cut street cleansing elsewhere, it emerged today.

The £29 million redesign of Exhibition Road in Kensington - home to the Victoria & Albert Museum, Natural History Museum and Science Museum - allows drivers and pedestrians to mix freely on a high-grade Chinese granite surface.

Kensington & Chelsea council undertook the project because it considered the old layout to be "unfriendly" for the 11 million annual visitors.

Many tourists back the redesign, but black cab drivers say they are less confident about driving on it.

Maintenance teams have been seen cleaning off chewing gum and skid marks left on the granite bricks by cars stopping sharply.

The council confirmed an extra £200,000 is being spent on "additional costs of Exhibition Road cleansing", while its budget states £336,000 is being cut from its overall street cleaning budget.

Gordon Taylor, chairman of West London Residents Association, who has a PhD in concrete engineering, said: "The Chinese granite they chose stains very easily and it's very dusty. You get oil leakage from the cars and grease, and also the chewing gum."

Steve McNamara, of the Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association, said: "The road surface seems slipperier than most and by the looks of the marks on the road people are having to brake quite harshly."

The council hopes the three-quarters-of-a-mile long road will mirror shared spaces on the Continent, where supporters say accidents have been reduced. Officials expect a new 20mph speed limit to cut accidents by 30 per cent. But charities for the blind said the redesign "alienated" people with sight problems.

The project was co-funded by Transport for London and neighbouring Westminster, which owns about a third of the north end of Exhibition Road.

Opposition Labour councillors claim that the Tory-run council has poured money into the project, in one of the borough's most affluent wards, while "neglecting" poorer North Kensington.