The government says local councils must consult local residents about road schemes that risk abusing pandemic safety cash. But Greenwich imposed a scheme without consultation.
Patience with bad schemes is running out. On 16 October, Grant Shapps, Transport Secretary, wrote to local authorities saying: “We are not prepared to tolerate hastily introduced schemes which will create sweeping changes to communities, without consultation, and ones where the benefits to cycling and walking do not outweigh the dis-benefits for other road users”. During the pandemic, use of public transport declined in the face of homeworking, unemployment and the relative safety of car use. As part of the response, the government and the Mayor of London reacted with short-term measures to support walking and cycling and – according to the London Mayor – “to prevent a car led recovery”. In May the government announced a £250 million “emergency active travel fund” to support pop-up bike lanes, wider pavements and safer junctions. The Mayor of London announced the London Streetspace Programme would be funded by the Department for Transport fund as well as Transport for London (TfL). The plan is “to accommodate a possible ten-fold increase in cycling and five-fold increase in walking when lockdown restrictions are eased”, promising safe, protected cycle routes and “school streets to create a safe environment around the school gate”. The Streetspace programme aims to block some streets to vehicles (“filtering”) to allow bike, walking and wheelchair journeys only. So LTNs all over London morphed into Covid-19 safety measures. By August this year, when the scheme was imposed in west Greenwich, pandemic conditions were then judged to be likely to increase car travel by 40-60 per cent. The Greenwich scheme does not support the Streetspace goals, but undermines walking and cycling by increasing vehicle movement and congestion in all the wrong places. The London Mayor and Royal Borough of Greenwich have confused pandemic safety with the conflicting goal of reducing traffic in residential “neighbourhoods”. Instead of diffusing pandemic traffic to help the economy and spread out essential car journeys, the scheme funnels traffic into already crowded roads that were part of our “neighbourhood” in the first place. Inside the area, a balance has been destroyed, putting unnecessary strain on Royal Hill where residents, shoppers and school pupils face heightened risks from traffic turning movements, additional through traffic, and large scale building work (see below) in addition to the failure to provide pavement width. The Gloucester Circus entrance on Royal Hill is now a danger zone of turning traffic, school arrivals and departures, delivery vans and service vehicles. Greenwich knew that work would start on the demolition and rebuilding of the old Police Station on Royal Hill. The contractors have set up a single carriageway traffic control between Gloucester Circus and Burney Street, causing traffic queues and obstructing attempts by shoppers to stay socially distanced and away from moving traffic. Nothing has been done to mitigate this. In so many ways, the scheme works to destabilise our community by creating difference and division. - New support for walkers inside the protected area was unnecessary. Before the scheme, its streets were quiet for the great majority of the time. There are wide pavements, often bounded by open heath or within a short distance of, or directly fronting, Greenwich Park. - Provision for cycling in Greenwich Park already exists and is safer than routes down Crooms Hill, Hyde Vale and Point Hill. Outside, it has simply magnified existing problems. - Pedestrian safety on and around the Blackheath Hill and Greenwich South Street junction has been neglected for years, and the scheme simply makes a bad situation worse, doing less than nothing to protect or support shopping or crossing the roads. - There is no new support for cycling on the most dangerous section on Blackheath Hill. The result is more pavement cycling. Cycling endangerment is now common throughout the ‘Hills and Vales’ because the area has steep gradients. - Lindsell Street, Plumbridge Street and Dabin Crescent have been left open to two-way through traffic without Covid-19 protection for walking, cycling or shopping. Pedestrians on Dabin Crescent are not protected from two-way traffic that frequently mounts both kerbs to pass on a three metres wide roadway. - Displaced traffic on Maze Hill and Westcombe Park Road has turned into a traffic nightmare of which there was no forewarning or explanation. It puts The John Roan School pupils at risk, and is causing huge delays and pollution. Sign the petitions, write to your local councillors, and let the London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, and the Government know how Covid cash is being misused in Greenwich. To give feedback on Streetspace, click the ‘feedback’ button at https://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/info/200259/transport_and_travel/2234/streetspace_programme The Minister, Grant Shapps MP, writing in the national press in September told councils abusing the cash to ‘speak to local residents, get it fixed or no more cash’. Write to the Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP at [email protected] or by post at House of Commons, Westminster, London W1A 0AA.
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The Scheme was introduced under a new temporary traffic order, so that Greenwich qualified for the first tranche of the Emergency Active Travel Fund. The government chose to introduce the scheme, creating an impenetrable concrete barrier along Royal Hill and Blissett Street, pushes Royal Hill and streets to the west of the barrier out of the LTN, increases traffic, and fails to provide protection for primary school children at James Wolf School, or people visiting neighbourhood shops cafes and businesses on foot.
‘Modal filters’ or permanent barriers deny essential access to local traffic and emergency services, exporting more traffic chaos, as the economy struggles with the pandemic. Blackheath Hill, already an accident and congestion blackpsot, has been forced to take on more overcrowding as local vehicles are forced by the barriers to divert. Cllr Geoffrey Brighty told the November 25 Council meeting that the scheme, which has displaced unacceptable levels of traffic to East Greenwich and Trafalgar Road, should be scrapped for the duration of the pandemic. The London Ambulance Service condemned the scheme in July when Greenwich Chief Traffic Engineer conducted a perfunctory consultation by email. Comments by the Ambulance and Fire service were ignored. South East London LAS said: "Congestion is already high on main trunk roads on the Blackheath and Shooters Hill area making emergency response challenging. Reducing access to residential streets would significantly impact on our ability to reach patients quickly. “Paramedics already have a stressful job managing patient care and cannot be further stressed by having to navigate complex road closures when trying to reach calls or rapidly convey very unwell or injured persons to hospital. “Consideration also needs to be given to the wider health and social care providers who will need access to address and are on tight schedules. Patient transport ambulance picking patients up for chemotherapy or dialysis appointments, district and community healthcare teams and social care carers will all be delayed by having to navigated additional road closures and restrictions leading to delayed care, welfare issues, humanitarian concerns and potential for emergency admission as a result of delays. Additional missed clinical appointments has a detrimental effect on service delivery and patient flow through the NHS system. "All local authorities and TfL are implementing these schemes and there is no coordinated engagement or process for emergency service to feedback or object resulting in schemes overlapping and impacting on each other. “The use of ANPR is the best way schemes can be enforced as it allows roads to remain open to emergency services at all times. Although costly, life, as you would agree, is more important.” LAS has also criticised Greenwich for failing to provide for turning at the scene, which could put critical patients at risk, and has also pointed out that Greenwich town centre has a high call volume due to residential, tourist, commercial and licensed premises in the area. The ambulance service is continuing to press for changes while Greenwich persists with the dangerous scheme. Only the fire brigade can drive through fixed modal filters like the barriers in Royal Hill. Ambulances and police vehicles do not carry keys and must follow alternative routes just like local residents. ![]() This is Royal Hill, the main through-route, now locked out of the traffic management area by the barrier. Local people are jostling with cars as they shop at the only parade of fresh food shops in west Greenwich. The carriageway is narrowed to protect major building work on the junction with Burney Street, and there’s no social distancing protection. Greenwich justified the traffic reduction scheme as part of a package of pandemic safety measures, but did nothing to protect pupils at James Wolfe Primary School, support pedestrians and cyclists or to enable social distancing. The government says local councils must consult local residents about road schemes that risk abusing pandemic safety cash. But Greenwich imposed a scheme without consultation. Patience with bad schemes is running out. On 16 October, Grant Shapps, Transport Secretary, wrote to local authorities saying: “We are not prepared to tolerate hastily introduced schemes which will create sweeping changes to communities, without consultation, and ones where the benefits to cycling and walking do not outweigh the dis-benefits for other road users”. During the pandemic, use of public transport declined in the face of homeworking, unemployment and the relative safety of car use. As part of the response, the government and the Mayor of London reacted with short-term measures to support walking and cycling and – according to the London Mayor – “to prevent a car led recovery”. In May the government announced a £250 million “emergency active travel fund” to support pop-up bike lanes, wider pavements and safer junctions. The Mayor of London announced the London Streetspace Programme would be funded by the Department for Transport fund as well as Transport for London (TfL). The plan is “to accommodate a possible ten-fold increase in cycling and five-fold increase in walking when lockdown restrictions are eased”, promising safe, protected cycle routes and “school streets to create a safe environment around the school gate”. The Streetspace programme aims to block some streets to vehicles (“filtering”) to allow bike, walking and wheelchair journeys only. So LTNs all over London morphed into Covid-19 safety measures. By August this year, when the scheme was imposed in west Greenwich, pandemic conditions were then judged to be likely to increase car travel by 40-60 per cent. The Greenwich scheme does not support the Streetspace goals, but undermines walking and cycling by increasing vehicle movement and congestion in all the wrong places. The London Mayor and Royal Borough of Greenwich have confused pandemic safety with the conflicting goal of reducing traffic in residential “neighbourhoods”. Instead of diffusing pandemic traffic to help the economy and spread out essential car journeys, the scheme funnels traffic into already crowded roads that were part of our “neighbourhood” in the first place. Inside the area, a balance has been destroyed, putting unnecessary strain on Royal Hill where residents, shoppers and school pupils face heightened risks from traffic turning movements, additional through traffic, and large scale building work (see below) in addition to the failure to provide pavement width. The Gloucester Circus entrance on Royal Hill is now a danger zone of turning traffic, school arrivals and departures, delivery vans and service vehicles. Greenwich knew that work would start on the demolition and rebuilding of the old Police Station on Royal Hill. The contractors have set up a single carriageway traffic control between Gloucester Circus and Burney Street, causing traffic queues and obstructing attempts by shoppers to stay socially distanced and away from moving traffic. Nothing has been done to mitigate this. In so many ways, the scheme works to destabilise our community by creating difference and division. - New support for walkers inside the protected area was unnecessary. Before the scheme, its streets were quiet for the great majority of the time. There are wide pavements, often bounded by open heath or within a short distance of, or directly fronting, Greenwich Park. - Provision for cycling in Greenwich Park already exists and is safer than routes down Crooms Hill, Hyde Vale and Point Hill. Outside, it has simply magnified existing problems. - Pedestrian safety on and around the Blackheath Hill and Greenwich South Street junction has been neglected for years, and the scheme simply makes a bad situation worse, doing less than nothing to protect or support shopping or crossing the roads. - There is no new support for cycling on the most dangerous section on Blackheath Hill. The result is more pavement cycling. Cycling endangerment is now common throughout the ‘Hills and Vales’ because the area has steep gradients. - Lindsell Street, Plumbridge Street and Dabin Crescent have been left open to two-way through traffic without Covid-19 protection for walking, cycling or shopping. Pedestrians on Dabin Crescent are not protected from two-way traffic that frequently mounts both kerbs to pass on a three metres wide roadway. - Displaced traffic on Maze Hill and Westcombe Park Road has turned into a traffic nightmare of which there was no forewarning or explanation. It puts The John Roan School pupils at risk, and is causing huge delays and pollution. Sign the petitions, write to your local councillors, and let the London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, and the Government know how Covid cash is being misused in Greenwich. To give feedback on Streetspace, click the ‘feedback’ button at https://www.royalgreenwich.gov.uk/info/200259/transport_and_travel/2234/streetspace_programme The Minister, Grant Shapps MP, writing in the national press in September told councils abusing the cash to ‘speak to local residents, get it fixed or no more cash’. Write to the Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP at [email protected] or by post at House of Commons, Westminster, London W1A 0AA. |