Pavement resurfacing – local successes

Throughout our time as your local Labour Councillors in Thurlow Park we have worked hard with residents and local community groups to create safer, cleaner and more accessible streets.

Having held individual resident meetings, attended resident association meetings, organised walkabouts, worked with our MP, arranged for Lambeth officers to visit streets in our ward, andlobbied the Cabinet lead responsible for streets, we are pleased to have been able to secure various resurfacing programmes to a number of streets across the ward – some of which had not been resurfaced for over 20 years despite residents’ best efforts!

Some of the roads or pavements that have undergone resurfacing so far include; Lovelace Rd, Carson Rd, Lavengro Rd, Idmiston Rd, Chatsworth Way, Deronda Rd, Trinity Rise , Brockwell Park Gardens, Guernsey Grove, Arduli Rd, Norwood Rd, Barston Rd, Tulsemere Rd, Towton Rd, Chancellor Grove, Thurlow Hill, Turney Rd, Rosendale Rd, Lancaster Avenue, and most recently, Hawarden Grove.

Despite deep Conservative Government cuts to Lambeth Council, we will continue to find ways to bring about the change that residents want, while continuing to work hard to ensure all parts of the ward have safe streets – streets that we can all be proud of.

If you think your street needs some resurfacing work please contact us and we’ll take a look. We’d also love to hear about any other improvements that you think would make this a better place to live. As local councillors we also regularly attend resident association meetings and arranged walkabouts with residents, so if you’d like to discuss in person, please get in touch to arrange this for your street.

Streetworks improvements begin next month with Norwood Road pavement resurfacing

Work will shortly be starting to resurface the pavements along Norwood Road, as the first phase of Streetworks, the community led project to improve West Norwood and Tulse Hill. This includes both sides of Norwood Road between Leigham Vale and Elmcourt Road. It will start in early August and will be carried out in phases as follows:

• 1st Phase: Norwood Road (east side only) opposite Leigham Vale to Avenue Park Road – approximately one week

• 2nd Phase: Norwood Road (east side only) between Avenue Park Road and Elmcourt Road – approximately three to four weeks

• 3rd Phase: Norwood Road (west side only) between Leigham Vale and opposite Elmcourt Road – approximately five weeks

In the letter sent to residents /businesses Lambeth states;

We are aware that many of you live or work near the affected roads and we will do our best to minimise disruption. We will have signs to inform the public that businesses are open as usual and to ensure that there will always be access to premises while improvement works are progressing. There are no scheduled road closures as part of the work however the parking bays outside Elmcourt Pharmacy will be suspended during the works on the west side of Norwood Road (the last phase of works).

We appreciate that these improvement works will cause some short term disruption however we will ensure that access and servicing needs are catered for. Should you have any queries regarding these works please contact Debbie Parker on DParker@lambeth.gov.uk or contact one of your local councillors

There are other changes proposed to improve West Norwood as part of Streetworks – you can see the plans at a public exhibition this Wednesday between 6.30-8pm at the Old Library, Knights Hill

Resurfacing Maintenance Programme 2016/2017

In our last blog piece in April 2016 we talked about the resurfacing works on Arduli, Guernsey, Trinity Rise, Deronda, Chatsworth and Idminston.

As an update we wanted to inform residents that we have continued to campaign for further resurfacing works to be conducted on roads /pavements such as Eastmearn, Tulsemere and Chancllor as it’s a key issue for residents in our ward.

Working with the Cabinet lead, Cllr Braithwaite, we can now share an overview of the criteria involved in Lambeth’s decision making about which roads /pavements require resurfacing.

The roads and pavements selected for an upgrade are dependant on the scores given following an assessment of every road and pavement in the borough. The scores (out of 10) is based on a number of factors;

In terms of roads, they are measured against a set of criteria, taking into consideration, the level of usage of the road, whether it’s considered to be a key network link, if its condition poses a health and safety risk, and a host of other aspects in order to work out the priority level such as; the road traffic sensitivity, planned engineering works and the local profile (i.e., near a school, church, leisure centre, hospital, park, museum and /or library).

In terms of pavements, it is much the same for roads though they will also take into account the deprivation of the local area, its usage, the local profile, planned works and its linkages to other main pedestrian networks.

As far as we are aware the next round of roads /pavements to be upgraded in second half of 2016/17 have not yet been compiled, so we will continue to campaign for those roads /pavements in our ward that we believe need to be revisited by officers and reassessed.

As residents may have noticed there are a couple of resurfacing programmes going on in Thurlow Park at the moment with work on Arduli and Guersney roads /pavements having already started. Resurfacing works on Trinity and Deronda roads and Chatsworth and Idministon pavements will also be completed before the summer hopefully.

Our campaign for road /pavement resurfacing has had some great success with roads like Carson and Lavengro having already been completed. We are going to continue campaigning for other roads /pavements in the ward like Chancellor, Tulsemere and Eastmearn to be resurfaced as its a key issue for residents in our ward.

Nominate your street!

Lambeth Council’s street improvements team is inviting each ward to nominate three roads and three pavements we would like to be resurfaced, as part of our manifesto pledge in 2014 to repave 130 miles of road and pavement.

So, we’d like to hear from you! Does your road need an upgrade? Let us know so that we can organise a walkabout to each road nominated.

A number of streets have already been improved. Currently, Lovelace Road’s pavements are being repaved – we look forward to the work being completed!

Does your road or pavement need resurfacing?

Your Thurlow Park councillors are submitting a list of roads and pavements we would like to see resurfaced as part of our £12.5 million commitment to improving roads across Lambeth in our manifesto in May 2014.

If you think your road should be included in our submission, please get in touch! Feel free to send pictures or just a description of where and why you think your street needs improving.

And remember, if there is a pothole or areas of uneven footpath, these can be repaired on an ongoing basis, even if your road is not selected by officers for resurfacing this time round.

Let us know on: @thurlowlabour on Twitter or via email to abirley@lambeth.gov.uk, mdeckersdowber@lambeth.gov.uk or fcowell@lambeth.gov.uk

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.

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.