Progress on our campaign for a safer South Circular!

For the last five years as your local councillors we have been campaigning for a safer South Circular.

Following the tragic death in 2017 of Dr. Jasjot Singhota at the zebra crossing on Thurlow Park Road, by Birkbeck Hill, in February we organised a walkabout with TfL, Helen Hayes MP and our GLA representative Flo Eshalomi to highlight the problem of speeding, as well as lobbying the transport deputy mayor of London.

Sadly, another young woman was killed on the South Circular a year ago crossing at the pedestrian crossing between Ladbrokes and the Co-op. This is a very dangerous junction, and while the £5 million we have secured as part of the Streetworks project to completely redesign it, clearly it needs to be made much safer much sooner while those plans are developed.

We met with London’s deputy mayor for transport and got a commitment that the Streetworks project would experience no further delays. In the interim, they agreed to review the positioning and lighting at the corner where the hit and run took place.

We are incredibly pleased to see that action has been taken – the crossing has been realigned to improve pedestrian visibility on this corner.

This is by no means enough, and we will continue to campaign for safety improvements. Soon, we hope to be able to share detailed plans for the gyratory redesign – the high level designs were developed with the community and have been with TfL technical officers to model.

Community gardening next weekend – get involved! 🌱

Join us and the Streetworks team on Saturday 15th at 11am to garden the circular bed on the corner of Harpenden Road and Norwood Road. The bed needs weeding, some digging over and some new plants added where some less scrupulous passers by have dug up and taken some of the shrubs we planted there a few months ago.

Local volunteers, Councillor Anna Birley and members of Streetworks and the Norwood Forum planting the bed in May.

We will be bringing some tools, plants and soil – but if you have bulbs or plants you would like to contribute or your own tools to use please do feel free to bring them along.

Work begins on the Norwood Road zebra crossing

We are thrilled that work has started on the new zebra crossing on Norwood Road, next to Harpenden Road.

Road safety is our top priority and we have been really disappointed by the delays to the delivery of this scheme. Initially, a complaint held up the delivery, and then complications regarding road traffic orders. These have been resolved, and in the meantime we organised for the contractors to be on site every morning with stop/go signs to help students cross the road to school.

The zebra crossing was a key aspect of Streetworks, designed by the community in workshops and receiving significant support during extensive consultation. We worked with Elmgreen School as well as local groups like the Norwood and Tulse Hill Forums and the Business Improvement District to ensure residents had many opportunities to have their say including meetings, workshops, market stalls, in-person surveys, social media and letters through every local door.

Harpenden consultation results — Results from the final consultation on plans for the new zebra crossing

Norwood Road – bollards, trees, benches and grot spots

A public consultation is now underway on the proposed location of trees, benches and bollards which will go in along Norwood Road between Robson Road and Tulse Hill station under the Streetworks project.

Please advise Streetworks of your views on the types of trees and possible locations, and also on sites for bins and bollards.

Identified actions needed to tidy up the street scene includes repainting all the post boxes, removing redundant street furniture e.g. relocating the temporary bike rack outside The Old Library, and relocation of commercial waste bins.

You can email your thoughts to hello@streetworks.london

Zebra crossing campaign success

We are thrilled to let you know that after a number of months delay, the zebra crossing on Norwood Road, by the junction with Harpenden Road, will be installed this Easter.

We have been pushing for a safer crossing on this section on Norwood Road for the last three years, as it is a busy and dangerous place to cross for many Elmgreen students travelling to and from school, and residents using the bus stops and local shops.

We secured funding from TfL as part of the Streetworks improvements to West Norwood, and the design for the crossing was developed collaboratively in workshops and public events with students, parents, local residents and businesses. Around 15,000 leaflets were distributed across West Norwood over a period of many months inviting residents to regular consultation and design events.

Hundreds of you took part, and this showed in the formal consultation when 82% of respondents supported the final plans, as shown in the breakdown of results below –

Work began to install the new crossing with the removal of the central reservation. However, a late complaint stalled the continuation of works while it was investigated.

As your local councillors, we have been very concerned that despite hundreds of residents and students taking part in designing the proposals, and the overwhelming support for it during the extensive consultation, one complaint has held up its construction. The scheme being put on hold while this one complaint is investigated means the crossing is even more dangerous than it was before. We have had hundreds of emails from parents and teachers frustrated with the situation.

The delay has been exacerbated by local Conservative and Lib Dem candidates trying to use the complaint to score political points. We don’t believe that it is right to put party politics above young people’s safety on our roads.

As your local councillors, we called for urgent work to install the community’s original plans for a zebra crossing, and for local opposition to put safety before political point scoring. We are really grateful for the support of parents, staff and students at Elmgreen School in writing to officers and Lambeth’s cabinet to speed up the delivery of a safe crossing – and we’re thrilled that your work has paid off! Work to install the crossing will start in the Easter holidays.

The one-way system in Tulse Hill is changing to become a two-way system. This is phase two of the StreetWorks scheme. The project has seen the design work for this, with residents suggesting that the road between the station and Tulse Hill Hotel be closed to cars, but remain open to buses and bikes.

TFL are funding and managing this part of the project, and want to update the local community on what is happening. This will happen on Tuesday 05 December from 6:30pm registration for a 7:00pm start, and held at the Salvation Army, 246 Norwood Road.

If interested do pop along.

Streetworks cycling consultation recently came to an end.

Cyclist’s had contact the Streetworks team to talk about ways in which the road by Ira Court could be made safer as it was proving difficult for them to cycle along this stretch of road due to the new position of the car parking bays. The bays were pushing cyclists further out into the traffic.

As a community project Streetworks investigated this concern and one of the ideas that came forward from the consultation was to create car parking bays in between the trees – ensuring that walkers still have lots of space on the pavement, and cyclists aren’t being pushed out into traffic.

The idea has now been modelled and though car parking spaces will have to be reduced form 8 to 6 it is felt this is a positive compromise in order to ensure that cyclists remain safe on the roads.

If you woudl like more information please visit – https://www.streetworks.london/single-post/2017/09/30/Update-on-cycling-consultation

The plans can be seen here – https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/380d87_00eea753239446f3a23d2b738c65f84f.pdf

The StreetWorks project has been busy of late working with cyclists regarding wider pavements near Ira Court, and the developing one way system by Tulse Hill.

Furthermore, the StreetWorks project has been nominated for The Association for Project Management awards in the category of Social Project of the Year. This is for our work on project management training with young people in West Norwood and Tulse Hill.

If you’d like more information please visit – http://www.streetworks.london/blog

In other news StreetWorks are going to be designing some posters and leaflets to give to businesses along Norwood Road – but would like it if someone locally could help. Do you have a flair for graphic design, and want to help explain the project to others in the area? Drop them an email at hello@streetworks.london.

Making West Norwood’s streets cleaner

We are disappointed that despite the investment in new pavements, in some areas Norwood Road is impacted by dumped rubbish. Flytipping and commercial waste left on the pavements sometimes stains them and is unpleasant when people are shopping, living, working and travelling locally.

We have been working with residents to identify the hotspots and have organised for Lambeth’s commercial waste officer to visit businesses to make sure they have the right arrangements in place for rubbish collections. We are also looking to get particularly damaged areas of new paving jet washed.

If you regularly see an area on Norwood Road or the Tulse Hill gyratory where rubbish is dumped, please do get in touch.

There have been improvement works being undertaken on Norwood Road with the new street design starting to shape.

However, if you are unclear as to what the final product will look like the technical drawings outlining the plans for Norwood High Street are now online, and you can check out how your thoughts and ideas of other residents have fed into the designs here – http://www.streetworks.london/documents