public engagement – Thurlow Park News

On 12 June, Lambeth Council’s website showed that a decision had been published regarding the design of Quietway 7 – the route along Rosendale Road and Turney Road.

This Quietway has been a fraught process since the outset, and we have worked closely with residents and community groups over the last two years to work towards a design that makes the road safer for residents, people shopping and working nearby, pedestrians, cyclists, pupils walking to school, and other road users.We organised a number of workshops and consultation events and have met with many residents on and near the route.

When the decision was published, we were concerned that the public feedback during the consultation and our contributions on residents’ behalf had not been taken into account. We therefore decided to call in the decision – this is a formal challenge to the decision and should only be used as a last resort, so we made sure to meet with the cabinet member and officers first.

Thanks to our willingness to engage with Lambeth stakeholders, and the ongoing work we have been doing with local residents on this, they have now agreed to withdraw the decision in order to take on board our points. They have committed to work with us to –

revisit the design, giving greater consideration to the responses to the last consultation
revise the project plan and timeline to include a 4-6 week public engagement period
put in place a process so that as your local councillors we have greater input into designs
review the engagement process for future transport projects so that this problem doesn’t arise again

We are pleased that this means, instead of time consuming and confrontational scrutiny meetings, we can get on with working with you to improve the scheme.

Next steps
Last week we met with the cabinet member and officers to discuss potential next steps. We shared these and listened to feedback at a public meeting we organised last Tuesday, which over 60 local residents attended.

Now to the end of July
Officers will revisit designs to look at where the most concerns and comments were raised during the consultation and from meetings with councillors, and will redesign sections to accommodate these.
We have requested that officers meet with important local stakeholder groups such as the Allotments and the Rosendale Road businesses, to ensure that new proposals are developed collaboratively and that their specific needs are met in the redrafted designs.

We, as your local councillors, will also meet with any residents or community groups wishing to discuss the designs. We will also keep our online survey open for residents to feed into and pass on any feedback received today. All contributions will be fed into the design process.

End of July/ early August
Officers will meet with councillors with completed new drafts so that councillors can ensure that feedback from residents and community groups has been fully incorporated, and request any further changes.

September
A public consultation will open, with a mixture of exhibitions, workshops and online feedback opportunities. We welcome any suggestions on how to make this as meaningful as possible. Officers and councillors will be on hand at all events to ensure any questions can be answered and that feedback is captured properly. This will also be an opportunity to contribute to the detailed design – this will include things like greening.

As a result of our public meeting, we have already started organising workshops between officers and the allotments and Rosendale Road businesses. We have also asked that the communication plan is shared so that residents can ensure it goes far enough to engage everybody.

We are pleased to announce that thanks to our intervention the Quietways design decision has been withdrawn to allow for designs to be revisited and full consultation with residents.

We have been working hard for the last two years to ensure the designs meet the needs of residents and the local community, whether they live, walk, work and/ or cycle locally. Our approach has been consistent – to work with you and ensure there is opportunity for local residents to shape the design.

We have emphasised throughout to officers, colleagues and TfL that proper consultation is the only way to ensure a scheme which people want and will use, and which makes the roads safer and more pleasant. This is why over the last two years we organised public meetings, met with resident groups regularly, and pushed officers to take on board concerns. We have listened to your feedback and agreed that the designs weren’t good enough, which is why we submitted our call-in.

A call-in is a final resort, so we did not rush into that without meeting with officers and the cabinet member first, where we expressed our concerns and asked that we work together to resolve issues.

Thanks to our willingness to engage with the cabinet member and officers, they have therefore agreed to withdraw the decision in order to take on board our points. They have committed to work with us to –

– revisit it the responses to the last consultation
– revise the project plan and timeline to include a 4-6 week public engagement period
– put in place a process so that as your local councillors we have greater input into designs
– review the engagement process for future transport projects so that this problem doesn’t arise again

We are pleased that this means, instead of time consuming and confrontational scrutiny meetings, we can get on with working with you to improve the scheme.

We are meeting officers and the cabinet member tonight to discuss the next steps, so we will also be going ahead with our public meeting tomorrow, on Tuesday 27 June at Rosendale School from 6.30-8pm to hear your concerns and contributions and share the details of those next steps.

If you cannot attend, or would like us to come along to discuss this at your local resident or community group meetings, please reply to this email and we would be happy to meet with you separately.

Tag: public engagement

Quietways engagement – next steps

Quietways design decision withdrawn to take on board our concerns and ensure public engagement