Railings removed

You can hit a curb and fall on the pavement, not possible with a railing present.
No reason to think you will still get crushed if there is a curb.

From the article:

Now these railings had been installed not six years ago for Health & Safety reasons following a number of appalling accidents where vehicles had mounted the pavement.

There's very clear evidence based reasons to believe that vehicles will indeed mount the pavement.

If vehicles mount the pavement when railings aren't there, then we should be thinking... what's the escape route for a cyclist? My point about the curb is the turning left will just lay you down on the pavement, in the way of the vehicle (as it mounts the curb).