Tag: cycling

Invitation to Quietways concept design showcase events

Thank you to everyone who has been involved in Quietways so far – although it’s been a rocky journey, huge numbers of local residents and businesses have engaged and lots of ideas and feedback have been put forward. Residents have been clear on their priorities – tackling speeding and making the road safer. There has also been some great discussions on how to enhance the parade of shops to make our mini “town centre” even more of a destination for the community.

Sustrans have been busy processing all the feedback and engineers are developing designs based on your suggestions.

These will be shared for your feedback at two concept design showcase events. Please come and see what you think – your input is invaluable.

  • Sunday 6th December 10.30-1.30pm
  • Wednesday 9th December 6.30pm-8.30pm

You can drop in at any time. Both events will be at Rosendale Primary School SE21 8LR. Sustrans will be present at both events and Richard Lancaster, who is taking over managing Quietways, along with the rollout of 20mph and a review of parking in the borough, will be attending the Sunday session and is happy to answer any questions. At least one of us will be at each event – as councillors we are doing what we can to be involved and available throughout the process.

Designs will also be available online and you can feedback by email. We will post a link when they’re uploaded.

One final design will be created based on your feedback from these showcase events and online engagement. This will go to a formal public consultation in January. You will be notified of this online and by post.

Raising Quietways concerns with Andrew Gilligan

Cllr Anna Birley recently met with Andrew Gilligan to raise the questions and concerns that many of you have sent us regarding Quietways.

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We asked –

  • Governance and decision making
  • Timings – can these be more flexible or are they politically driven
  • Choice of route – why was there no consultation and was it influenced unfairly by the Dulwich Estate?
  • Why has engagement been so poor?
  • Interventions – what is on and off the table?
  • Aspirations for the programme – it appears like a lot of money will be spent on a small increase in cycling, so how will success be measured?
  • What happens if changes to Rosendale Road are insufficient to deal with priorities highlighted by residents – speeding and safety?

Anna’s feedback is –

“Andrew said he agrees that the programme has not gone as well as intended and acknowledged residents’ concerns about poor engagement. While it may not be of comfort to Thurlow Park residents, I believe that by learning from our experience the delivery of other Quietway routes in the future will be much better.

“He assured me that the Dulwich Estate did not exert undue influence and that a route through Dulwich Village had its own challenges when it reached some difficult junctions at the South Circular. I expressed our disappointment that there had been no consultation about this at the time.

“I wasn’t very satisfied with his reply to my questions about a lot of money being spent to make minor changes – while I’m pleased to see investment in Rosendale Road, it has been pointed out by residents that a 10-20% increase in cycling isn’t in practice very many additional cyclists on the route. He said that in the context of significant TfL budgets being spent on large projects like Tulse Hill, this was not a big sum.

“He suggested that we could look at phasing the changes – we could make very minor changes now as phase one, and plan to make more significant ones later if there is demand for this locally. Currently this is not the plan, and anything we want to do must be done in the current scheme, but I would be interested in residents’ feedback on whether we should be pushing for anything additional as a phase two.

“I explained that the priorities of many local residents were to reduce speeding, make the road safer and tackle ratrunning traffic on neighbouring roads like Dalmore and Eastmearn. He is committed to investing in a route rather than a group of trees so any changes to neighbouring roads would need to demonstrate why they make the route safer. With the issues that residents have raised about the Dalmore and Eastmearn, we perhaps need to focus on why ratrunning traffic makes the Eastmearn junction with Rosendale Road, by the shops, so dangerous. That in turn will hopefully mean we can look at including Dalmore, providing a plan is put on the table that residents like.

“Regarding speeding, I shared the desire for better speed cameras and proper enforcement. He didn’t give the impression that this could be included in the Quietways funding but I have followed up by email to underline the strength of feeling held by many that this is key to tackling speeding.”

Many thanks to Val Shawcross, Assembly Member for Lambeth and Southwark, who organised and facilitated the meeting.

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Quietways – update from the first workshop

Last week Sustrans held the first of a series of workshop sessions to discuss traffic in Rosendale Road.

This is the start of a programme of community engagement and co-design to look at the possibility of making improvements in the Rosendale Road area. The initiative is part of a wider programme of creating a network Quietway cycle routes.

We, like many of you, were alarmed at initial proposals to close Rosendale Road to through traffic – these plans from TfL had not been consulted on locally and there had been no opportunity for local councillors, businesses and residents to have their say. 

We believe that it is important for local people to lead any change to their neighbourhood and have successfully got the road closure plans scrapped. 

We have subsequently worked closely with Sustrans to organise a series of co-design workshops which will give local communities the chance to take part in the design and decision making, before any formal consultation even begins.

The timeline is –

  • Information gathering drop in – between 225 and 250 people attended on 30th September at All Saints Church. This session was so that Sustrans could gather your feedback on living, walking, working, cycling and driving in the local area so that any new plans are based on local experience
  • Second and third workshops on 10th October at 10.30-1pm and 14th October at 5-7.30pm both at All Saints Church – These two events will be the same, so residents only need to come to one. Space is limited, so please RSVP here. If more people want to take part than there is space for, we will be requesting an additional session be organised. These sessions are more hands-on – people can get involved in creating designs. There will be large scale maps, traffic engineers, tools and data to hand to help you. And as there is currently no plan on the table you can discuss any issue from zebra crossings to street planting.
  • Following the co-design workshops, engineers will work up a number of feasible concept designs. These may vary in terms of scope, scale and cost as they will be completely shaped on the feedback and ideas gathered at the co-design events.
  • Workshop 4 will be a “feedback concept showcase” on 24th October between 10.30 and 2.30pm at All Saints Church. This will be more of a drop in so that you can see the variety of designs drawn up from the previous sessions and choose a favourite. Don’t worry if you can’t make this date – your voice will still count as we will be putting the plans online and sending them out by email for your feedback. There is still scope at this stage for adjustments to be made if your preferred design still has room for improvement.
  • Formal consultation – the design which the majority of local people and businesses choose will then be put forward for formal consultation. This will begin on 17th November

We will work to make sure community expectations and questions are met. We have had mixed feedback following the first workshop and wanted to share what information we have to try and address some of those concerns.

  • Availability of traffic data – this is available online here. We anticipate there being more data available to share shortly and we have created a page on our website here to upload everything we can. Do keep checking for updates.
  • Quality of survey – we have met with Sustrans to feed back this concern and they will take it on board as the codesign process continues. You can feed your ideas into the process without using the survey by emailing us or Ruth on rosendalefeedback@sustrans.org.uk – and we will make endeavour to sure that the formal consultation after 17th November is vigorous
  • Were resident’s points taken on board? We have requested that feedback from the last workshop is shared to attendees and others locally who couldn’t make it in a comprehensive and transparent way. If, once this has been compiled, you are concerned that your points aren’t included, please do just let us know.
  • Some streets missed out on the communications – the map showing where leaflets and invitations were delivered is here. If you are worried that you’re not receiving the information then please let us know and we will double check you are added to the mailing list.
  • The format (post-it notes and maps) wasn’t the best way to discuss – we’ve fed this back to Sustrans and the next workshops will be much more hands on. While there will definitely still be maps, and probably still be post-it notes, we hope that the hands on format will be more conducive to in depth discussions on the areas that you’re most passionate about.
  • The scheme doesn’t join up with other changes happening locally – as local councillors we are involved in all major schemes in the area and will be working to make sure these join up. We have briefed Sustrans on the work happening at StreetWorks on Norwood Road and have spoken to TfL officers about the importance of these projects complementing each other.
  • There is no opportunity to comment on the Quietways route or discuss whether any intervention is needed in the first place – we agree that there should have been proper public engagement when the routes for Quietways were being drawn up. The decision on the routes was made at City Hall by the Mayor of London’s team, and with our local Assembly Member, we will be meeting with that team to discuss why this didn’t happen and to interrogate the process followed.

If you wish to be kept informed please contact Sustrans at rosendalefeedback@sustrans.org.uk to be added to their email update list. Otherwise, you can always email us with your points or concerns and we will be sure to keep you in the loop.

And don’t forget to RSVP for the 10th October or 14th October workshops

Space for Cycling

We have been very pleased to see so many Thurlow Park residents writing to us about improving cycle safety and welcome the excellent work that the London Cycling Campaign has done in helping to coordinate some of the priorities of cyclists across Lambeth. The Labour Council have compiled a complete list of those priorities by ward across the borough, which we would be happy to share. As soon as we have more information about your proposal to make routes to Turney and Rosendale schools safer we will update you.

In the meantime, the Labour Council is working hard to make the borough as cycle friendly as possible. We are pleased to be the third most popular borough for cyclists in London and it is a Labour manifesto commitment to make Lambeth the most cycling friendly borough in London. Some steps we taking in this direction include;

Labour are committed to making a record investment in our road and pavement network. In the next 4 years alone Lambeth are going to repave 130 miles of highways and footpaths to help eliminate potholes and other obstacles that pose a threat to cyclists.

We are working with neighbouring Southwark to introduce a borough-wide 20MPH zone.

In Thurlow Park, many of you signed our petition last summer calling for greater safety measures around the Tulse Hill Gyratory. We managed to secure a £5 million investment to redesign the junction to make safer and more cycle friendly.

Under Labour, Lambeth were the first borough in the UK to introduce secure, covered cycle hangars on streets and estates for residents without spaces to store their cycles and we are looking to expand this provision.

In Thurlow Park we are working on improving road safety in and around the Rosendale School area to allow everyone to cycle safely, including better traffic monitoring and the potential addition of a cycle path.

As a keen cyclist, I’m thrilled that so many people in this ward share my passion. This is a great area to cycle but there’s always more to be done – I’m looking forward to working with you all when elected to continue making the roads here more bike friendly

Fred Cowell

Robson Road junction proposals

Cllr Ann Kingsbury wrote to the Head of Transportation at Lambeth Council to express her strong support for the views of the Norwood Forum and Norwood Action Group in response to traffic plans of the Norwood Road /Robson Road junction.

As you may well be aware, there has been extensive consultation on the junction and there seems to be widespread approval for Lambeth’s proposals – which also include a pedestrian crossing and better design for cyclists.

From the pedestrian point of view the introduction of staggered crossings is not an improvement in either safety or amenity, as its quiet possible that people will be tempted to cross the road in a straight line and will take risks in doing so.

The current Lambeth proposals should result in improved safety, but it would appear that the TfL modifications give pedestrians and cyclists safety and amenity a lower priority. It also appears that these modifications could lead to a loss of road space and force cyclists to compete for access.

In any case, banning a left turn at the junction with Robson Road will presumably force traffic to turn into Ernest Avenue or Hannen Road to join the northbound traffic on Knight’s Hill and then right into Robson Road. This will effectively create a new gyratory system and introduce the possibility of the junction being blocked by the 322 bus turning right. The plans do not seem to allow for a permitted left turn for buses, an it is difficult to see how this will improve journey times for passengers on the 322 in the Crystal Palace direction.

Furthermore, the route along Robson Road, turning left at West Norwood is the only direct route between West Norwood and West Dulwich. Although only a small proportion of West Norwood traffic takes this route, the amount is still sufficient. If redirected down other left turns off the Norwood Road an increase in traffic would be to the detriment to the centre.