Play streets!

Thurlow Park welcomes the arrival of South London’s first Playstreets, the result of successful campaigning by local residents and an intelligent response from the Cooperative Council!

This summer has seen Hexham Road have access to traffic restricted on Saturdays between 2:00 – 5:00pm and Guernsey Grove, at the other end of the ward, on Fridays between 3:30 – 6:30pm until next May. This is to allow children to play out and socialise in the street without concerns about traffic, an important initiative for the health and wellbeing of our younger residents.

Max, Anna and Fred outside All Saints Church on a walkabout with Lambeth Council Leader, Lib Peck

Work starting soon to improve Norwood high street

A large part of the Mayor’s Outer London Fund money, which Lambeth bid for recently, will be used to improve the Norwood Road and the area around St Luke’s Church with the first phase of the works due to start this September. Norwood High Street and Knight’s Hill will be the first roads in line for improvement with new paving and widened pavements up as far as the railway line.

From January 2014, the improvement works will be extended to north of Chestnut Road. The remodelling of the dangerous junction at Robson Road and Norwood Road will be done after the other works and will complete this phase of improvements. The junction works are scheduled to start in February 2014. The following financial year Highways propose to extend these improvement works along the Norwood Road as far as Tulse Hill Station and to eventually include the Tulse Hill one way system as part of the overall scheme.

Trouble on the Tulse Hill Gyratory

Safety surrounding the Tulse Hill one-way system has been a concern to many resident in Thurlow Park ward and the Norwood community as a whole. The Labour Action Team, Anna, Fred and Max, and Cllr Ann Kingsbury have been working with members of the Tulse Hill Forum and Assembly Member Val Shawcross to press for changes. Safety concerns have become very severe recently; a car spun off the road in Hardel Rise and demolished the front of one of the houses, the fourth incident of its kind.

In response to a question from Val, TfL agreed to look at the junction to see what could be improved and were due to report later this year but this incident has convinced them that they need to look urgently at safety. It now seems that TfL would be willing to look at redesign of the junction and Lambeth will start talks with them to consider this. In the short term, Lambeth are looking to put in measures to protect residents of Hardel Rise.

Your Labour Action Team will be campaigning for the junction to be improved very soon; look out for our petition calling on the Mayor to take action. If you have concerns about the junction, we would like to hear from you. Please contact Ann at akingsbury@lambeth.gov.uk if you want to know more.

Nettlefold Library – update

The process of getting the Library cleaned up in preparation for rebuilding works has been slowed down by squatters. It is very disappointing that they were able to gain access and although they have gone, they made so much mess that the asbestos decontamination is now much more complicated. This will not only delay the planning application but increase the size of the works, which will now have to go out to competitive tender.

Nevertheless the negotiations are still going ahead, a lease is being drawn up between Lambeth and the cinema company and some precious archives have been removed from the basement. All the Norwood councillors continue to press for progress. The Steering Group meets again in September.

Road resurfacing on Croxted Road

The southern section of Croxted Road, between the South Circular and Park Hall Road is to be resurfaced; this section of the road is the responsibility of Southwark Council. Labour councillors from College ward have been working with their council to minimise disruption caused by these repairs.

The northern section of the road, up to the Norwood Road junction is Lambeth’s responsibility. There are no plans at present to repair this stretch, although Cllr Ann Kingsbury has established that it has been recommended for resurfacing.