Road Closures

Streetscape
#140

I was pondering the slider, why it was 0 to 100 rather than 1 to 100. I think the answer is so that there is a ‘dead spot’ at 50 which is entirely neutral to avoid skewing the data incase no input is entered on the slider (it starts at 50). That said, most people wanged it to one end or the other, and in the above data the slider value almost always agrees with the answer to the final question “Would you like this scheme to be made permanent?”.

To make such a mis-interpretation is plain stupid, though making objective sense of the ‘agrees’ is not easy. ‘Gaming’ the ‘agrees’ isn’t hard, and the whole agrees thing would be best being completely dropped in my opinion.

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#141

Commonplace

To be honest I’d not have heard about anything to do with Road Closures if it wasn’t for this thread. I hadn’t heard of Commonplace as a way to register opinion either. It certainly isn’t a democratic way to garner public opinion if it’s not well publicised. Either that or I missed a leaflet through the door that said ‘hey we want your opinion’.

The comments about traffic remind me of the phrase ‘you’re not stuck in traffic, you ARE traffic’.

What I do find bizarre about the whole thing, and I agree with people complaining about this, are that they seem to have shoe horned it in as a ‘social distancing excuse’, to quote myself earlier when I saw the signs on the planter boxes:

I think it’s a lame excuse for blocking roads and just frustrates everyone on both sides of the discussion, they should stick to the main argument: cars pollute, cause traffic and for a majority of short journeys are unnecessary. Walking and cycling is better for your health, you’ll be less of a drain on the NHS, you’ll have better mental health etc etc etc. Reducing traffic promotes safer environments for more people to cycle.

Are we going round in circles yet?

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#142

Out of curiosity, let’s recreate the SE26.life poll here, and see if there’s a difference in opinion (note that our poll is restricted to trust-level-1+ members in order that we’re only sampling people who’ve participated in this forum as opposed to new signups):

The council has now blocked traffic on certain roads in Lewisham, in a plan designed to discourage motorists from using their vehicles and encourage walking, cycling and social distancing.

Critics pointed out the lack of formal consultation, the resulting increases in congestion on other roads, and the peculiar choice of roads to target.

How do you feel about this new traffic management strategy?

  • Pleased to see these road blocks
  • Unhappy about the road blocks
  • Don’t feel strongly either way
  • Other (please comment)

0 voters

#143

I filmed and reported 3 drivers that all did this one after each other last year on a FH road. Although this was because of roadworks and there were clear diversions in place and they ignored the short diversion next to the roadworks!Children had been walking along here just minutes before. The police fined all of those drivers.

It does annoy me when drivers are too arrogant to obey signs but not sure how I feel about this situation though if there’s no warnings and no alternatives…

I’m confused by the signs at the end of Devonshire Road. Cars obviously still coming off the south circular and cutting through in the morning as a short cut even though the south circular is not busy and they’re just being too impatient, so what purpose were these barriers meant to serve?

#144

18 months ago. That’s interesting. I thought these measures were temporary, and Covid-related… :thinking:

#145

This is not the work of the Deputy Mayor.

#146

Even though we may disagree about the closures, we can agree that using Covid as an excuse is daft. I don’t approve of the method even if I agree with the solution. As I said before it detracts from the real issues.

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#147

There was something in that tweet which made me wonder whether those specific interventions had already been planned and consulted. It looks to me as they were. For context the tweeter along with and the two other people referenced are the local councillors for Lee Green Ward where that specific intervention fell.

So perhaps not so nefarious as suggested.

There’s been a lot of discussion as to whether these plans have been simply pulled out of the hat. No doubt some have, or at least plans advanced in light of the Covid-19 crisis. And I too hope that the post-intervention consultations are in full swing, they will be more robust.

But the Council’s plans for interventions of this nature was very much a part of their transport strategy released in February 2019 and widely consulted on in 2018. This included statutory consultees including emergency services, disability groups, and other special interest bodies for road users. Specific recommendations for the aforementioned Lee Green (May 2019) and East Sydenham (June 2019) were already advanced following area specific consultation processes before the Covid-19 crisis hit. It wouldn’t be that far fetched to suggest the results of those consultations would be replicated to a degree in other Wards. Hard to say yes… hard to say no.

We should never lose site either that these actions are, in part a result of central government direction to local authorities and in response to the Covid-19 crisis. No doubt this has helped some within the council - councillors and mayor included who now find their programs conveniently aligned with central government policy.

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#148

I think I speak for many here when I say: I don’t care which arm of government, or which party is behind these poorly implemented, poorly thought out traffic blocks. This discussion isn’t about political point scoring, nor should it be.

The main concerns raised in this topic are:

  • how did the council choose which roads to close?
  • is the means of consultation fit for purpose?
  • why was the signage so poor, or missing in many cases?
  • is it appropriate to punish drivers for escaping the impossible situation of being trapped midway down a long narrow road with a long queue of vehicles behind them, having encountered a blockage which was inadequately signed?

I’m glad you posted James’ tweet containing those stats:

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If you look closely you’ll see none of those statistics imply actual support for the specific schemes that have been implemented. Take the “1506 text comments” stat for example. How many of those comments were positive, and how many of them were scathing, critical of a scheme which we’ve seen criticised widely over social media?

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#149

compared with, say, Cllr James Rathbone who has gone to the trouble of living in the Borough whose people he represents and getting himself elected.

Bashing Lewisham Council at every opportunity seems to be a part time sport for some on this forum.

There are differing opinions on that scheme from local residents but as to the process of evolving the plan on the Lee Green scheme this was a detailed Council response on that matter earlier in the year.

‘From the outset the Council has been keen to engage as many residents as possible in the development of the Lewisham & Lee Green Healthy Neighbourhood scheme. On this basis, upon commencement of the project the Council wrote to 9,000 households to provide background information on the programme objectives and to invite residents/businesses to a number of events so that any transport issues could be raised. These events were run by our community engagement specialists Sustrans. Officers had a positive response to this letter drop, with over 1,500 unique visitors to our website and over 100 people came down to the four workshop events at Manor House Library, held between 5 June and 6 July 2019.

The biggest issues that people raised were the amount of traffic using local residential roads to avoid nearby main roads, as well as the resultant pollution from motor vehicles. Residents identified better pedestrian crossings, more tree planting, more cycle provision and closing roads to through traffic as desirable solutions to the issues raised. The community engagement reports can be found on the dedicated Lewisham & Lee green page listed below.

The Council has developed a DRAFT scheme that it considers tackles many of the issues that were raised during the engagement outlined above. The evolving proposals have been discussed by a working group of residents that was set up at the beginning of the process and at Local Assembly meetings, Local councillors have been door knocking in the local area to speak to residents with residents, and responded to a large number of enquiries by email. The feedback from this further phase of resident engagement has meant that the scheme has been continually evolving over the last few months, as officers take on board some of the useful suggestions that have been raised. Now that the community’s aspirations and concerns for the area have been gauged, officers are carrying out some work with Transport for London, to understand the likely traffic impact of the draft scheme.

The borough is committed to ensuring that as many residents as possible have a chance to engage in the healthy neighbourhood programme to help shape proposals as they evolve. In the week commencing 20th January, the Council sent out a further letter to 12,000 household’s in the area to provide an update on the programme and include the latest draft plan. The letter also set out information on the next steps and a full list of FAQs. This letter will be followed up by a public drop in session, which has been arranged for 6th February, 1-8pm, Good Sheppard Church Hall, Handen Road, SE12 8NR where residents can provide feedback on the draft proposals. An update was given at the Lewisham Central Assembly on the 16th January and the Lewisham and will be given at the Lee Green Central Assembly in mid February.

The Council statement concluded:-
“The purpose of the trial is to allow the Council (for a relatively low cost) to ‘test’ the design to see how it works in ‘real life’ and it also allows us to ‘tweak’ the design if required as all the interventions during the trial phase will be relatively easy to move. A formal consultation process will start during the trial which will include the following:
• Officers will be stewarding key locations in the first week of the trial to answer public enquiries
• An email address will be available for people to let us know their initial views of the trial scheme and raise any urgent matters that need addressing
• A public drop-in session will be organised for half way through the trial
• A dedicated webpage and consultation questionnaire will then be launched, seeking final views on the scheme, including the proposed complementary measures
Responses from the consultation will be analysed, and a proposed way forward taken to Mayor & Cabinet for decision.”

That seems a reasonable effort to me.

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#150

Are we not allowed to rationally criticise council policies? Only allowed to support them?

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#151

This is good, I agree with points that you’ve both made.

@starman thanks for the Transport strategy link: it’s pretty clear what’s literally number 1

If streets and street networks are designed to encourage walking, cycling and public transport use, people will rely less on cars.

@anon5422159 agreed the implementation is far from perfect: I didn’t get a leaflet and as far as consultation goes I had no idea it was happening, although they seem to be catching up with better signage as I saw yesterday.

I will however take you to task on cherry picking stats.

Since you used the words none and imply I’d say that subscribers to Green Healthy neighbourhoods does in fact imply support. :slight_smile:

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#152

I would hope anyone wishing to rationally criticise them might also then consider the external influences which in part drive those policies. And perhaps recognise this has nothing to do with political point scoring.

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#153

But the councillor advises that support was very large and overwhelmingly positive. I chose not to believe he was lying.

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#154

The “external influences” you were discussing were political. As I said, it doesn’t matter which politicians or councillors, or which parties came up with these bad ideas. It just matters that we have a way to influence their implementation by the council.

#155

Why do we commission extensive and rigorous public consultations when we could just “ask James”…?

#156

Because James is a duly elected official representing the people of his ward. And I trust him to not be so vagrant with the truth. You of course can chose to believe otherwise and if you have reason to believe he is dishonest on these matters, I’d welcome to hear it.

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#157

If Lee Green ward gets the level of consultation claimed, then it seems strange that Forest Hill and Sydenham wards don’t. I’m not disagreeing with you that they did I have no knowledge of that area. But our local wards certainly did not get consulted. I don’t think I’ve missed any FH ward assemblies in the last year but I will check the minutes.

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#158

Lewisham’s website lists all their public Consultations over the last few years, open and closed. There is one consultation that might be claimed to be relevant but it closed in 2018. It is the one where I asked for school crossings on upper Kirkdale. I see from the map that others asked for school crossings on Mayow Road. There were just two requests relating to traffic on Silverdale. None at all for Bishopthorpe.

https://consultation.lewisham.gov.uk/consultation_finder/?sort_on=iconsultable_enddate&sort_order=descending&advanced=1&st=closed#cs-finder-results-container

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#159

Lewisham Public Consultations, none at all for Bishopsthorpe, so why was the Silverdale/Bishopsthorpe road closure implemented where the Deputy Mayor of Lewisham happens to live ?

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