I’m getting confused now. Is the whole of TA going to be one way eastbound or just the top half? And from when?
Just the top half, it will be 24/7 from the beginning of December.
You will never be able to drive up Thorpewood Avenue and exit from Kirkdale again.
The only exit will be from the bottom junction with Dartmouth Road.
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It is probably time to wrap up this thread as it is obvious this scheme will go ahead in the name of COVID without the need for consultation.
There has been engagement from our councillors on this forum. It has been educational for our Councillors. This is seen as the Eliot Bank School Street but Leo thought EB had three form entry. This thread corrected that important fact as it is two-form entry.
It has been important for residents in getting clarification and transparency. The council sent a letter to residents that was unclear which most residents misinterpreted. Leo admitted the letter should have been clearer. The material fact was that the top of Thorpewood Avenue would be one way with no exit onto Kirkdale which was cleared up after 11 days on this thread. This obviously means twice the amount of traffic 24/7 exiting via Dartmouth Road which is a known bottleneck.
There has been little evidence of working with the community. There was a Thorpewood Avenue Working Group which met and decided two key things: any scheme should benefit the whole street including all residents and both schools and not just push traffic/congestion around. All residents in neighbouring roads should be consulted about any scheme. The community weren’t contacted when the proposal was put forward but it was known in Labour circles. Leo accepted “the criticism that as soon as I heard that a School Street was being considered for Thorpewood Avenue was in August I should have contacted the TAWG”. The community were informed 2 months later and given a plan and told just endure all the extra pollution and congestion when it is shifted down the road to you.
The most damning thing about this scheme is the lack of hard evidence in favour of it. The only hard evidence about congestion and pavements/social distancing was from three officers of Lewisham’s Highway and Traffic Department reported by Leo in 2019 who said it wasn’t particularly bad compared to the rest of the borough and there were wide pavements. Leo has responded to this that the school does have its problem with congestion but with no proof that it really has got any worse especially now EB has halved the number of children who enter via Thorpewood.
I also feel as a labour voter of 30 years that it fails to honour the simple principles of inclusion and equality by not including Holy Trinity School which is on the same street and will now have to take twice as much pollution as it will be situated beside the only car traffic exit on Thorpewood Avenue.
I am going to end with a poll as I agree with Leo that the discussion is probably no longer productive.
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These photos just show the front entrance which is now being used by half the pupils going to Eliot Bank.
How do you feel about this use of COVID-19 legislation to push through a school street and one way system without consulting local residents?
- Unhappy Residents should be consulted and the case proved with evidence rather than opinion.
- Happy It is for the greater good and the residents should have faith in the proposal and give it time.
- Don’t Care
- Other (Please Comment)
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Lewisham are proposing to use Emergency Covid Legislation to push through a school street for Eliot Bank on half of Thorpewood Avenue with a permanent one way system without the need for consultation of local residents. There are two sides to the argument.
Proponents would say:
Anything small that makes it difficult to park near a school will discourage parents
The driveways of local residents are constantly parked by parents. Cameras will stop this.
The residents and schools that are likely to be affected by the displacement of congestion and pollution by the permanent one way system should wait to see if the scheme is effective.
Holy Trinity is small, the parents are generally poorer with less car ownership so there is less parent traffic congestion/pollution there and no need for them to be part of this scheme.
Critics would say :
There is conclusive evidence from Lewisham Traffic and Highways Department against this scheme.
The limited nature of the scheme will just push traffic down the road and make the already very congested bottleneck at Dartmouth road worse. Twice the traffic will now go through this pinchpoint which might lead to more congestion/pollution and gridlock. The affected residents have not been consulted or given clear information.
Covid Legislation is about social distancing/safety. Eliot Bank has resolved this itself
Why is Holy Trinity School excluded from this scheme when they actively use Thorpewood Avenue and are situated beside the most congested/polluted junction.
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The real solution to the problem of parents driving to schools would be to end the league tables, which encourage parents to apply to schools based on the exam results. Also I think there is a need for parents to be encouraged to move their children to other schools, if they move house. They often move house to get near to the secondary school of their choice.
I feel as if I have been goaded back into this conversation because I cannot let such misrepresentation lie.
Known in Labour circles! By that you mean the Chair of Governors at Eliot Bank? Who would have been working with Lewisham Council discussing these proposals for months? They happen to be a Labour member. Jeez.
‘Holy Trinity is small, the parents are generally poorer with less car ownership so there is less parent traffic congestion/pollution there and no need for them to be part of this scheme’.**This is somewhat of a misrepresentation. Holy Trinity is smaller, about half the size of Eliot Bank so yes, congestion is less of an issue there.**However, local deprivation level is one of our assessment factors and when only a few Schools Streets could be prioritised, we wanted to target interventions in more deprived and polluted area. Fortunately, with new funding, we can prioritise a wider array of schools if deemed feasible.
‘There is conclusive evidence from Lewisham Traffic and Highways Department against this scheme’.This is simply incorrect.
‘The limited nature of the scheme will just push traffic down the road and make the already very congested bottleneck at Dartmouth road worse. Twice the traffic will now go through this pinchpoint which might lead to more congestion/pollution and gridlock’ The level of eastbound through traffic will stay the same. The level of westbound through-traffic will be reduced to zero - Massively freeing up the entrance of Dartmouth Rd. Yes, residents leaving TA will now exit by Dartmouth Road, but overall, the scheme should lead to a lot less traffic running through TA and therefore a lot less congestion at this junction.
‘The affected residents have not been consulted or given clear information.’ You’re literally being consulted on it now during its trial. If it is to become permanent, it will need to go through a statutory consultation process.
‘Covid Legislation is about social distancing/safety.’ A School Street allows schools to manage arrivals far more easily. A freed-up street scene, and children/parents arriving by foot, allows more space for easier staggered entry. It is much harder to manage children being passed out of cars on a congestion street. I think the school would disagree that this issue has been totally resolved.
‘Why is Holy Trinity School excluded from this scheme when they actively use Thorpewood Avenue and are situated beside the most congested/polluted junction.’ **How many times does this need to explained to you? 1. Dartmouth Rd cannot be closed off for obvious reasons. 2. Holy Trinity have not engaged with a forming School Travel Plan to the extent necessary to be prioritised for a School Street, nor has the School’s leadership shown any interest in wanting a School Street. 3. To close off TA at Dartmouth Round would also mean us making the entirety of TA one way, as we did not have funds for two sets of cameras (and a gate at Derby Hill).**And as I have repeatedly explained if the scheme simply knocks-on congestion and congestions remains at the same level as before, then we will look at amending/scrapping the scheme after or during the trial period. The feasibility of the scheme and therefore why it has been planned the way it was has been repeatedly explained on this thread.
On the matter of evidence. Observations from officers are our evidence base. They deemed Eliot Bank not a priority when we could only trial one or two schemes in the borough but worthy of intervention when we had funds to run more trials. Their observations were based on resident’s complaints, on feedback from schools and their School Active Travel plan involvement, on several observation visits (not just the one I attended), on the traffic volumes and speeds, on pollution levels, on pavement width and pupil numbers, and on the feasibility of a closure.Opinion, you might call it.
You claim you do not support the School Street because there is no evidence for it, yet you dismiss it with ZERO evidence and claim that it won’t work. At least our officers have an evidence base that helped formed their opinion, and I after hearing your points and theirs - I believe their judgement and their arguments have more weight, and that this trial, should go ahead. I am elected to make those calls.
Time and time again there is a crowd that opposes any trial of any traffic intervention, if they believe, even without evidence, that it will personally hinder them. They claim no evidence is ever good enough. No reasoning ever strong enough. Observations and expertise of officers and the judgement of elected officials are not enough.
For minor schemes, like individual model filters or School Streets, they want levels of “data” (as if that is a neutral arbiter) collected and a threshold of ‘evidence’ that would simply be unfeasible for a cash-strapped local authority to cover resource-wise… and is unlikely to still satisfy them anyway. It is a transparent way to prevent any traffic-reduction intervention trials and to argue that therefore despite all the observation work, all the assessment made by civil servants based on the criteria outlined in my comments here and to @DevonishForester 5 days ago, they say ‘there is not enough evidence for it’.
We want consultations, but before implementation, so feedback can be made on presumptions. But we don’t want consultations during a trial when the reality of a scheme can actually be viewed.
Call me cynical, but it is almost as if some people do not wish for the trial for fear of it succeeding and benefitting the wider community but burdening them personally.
I am sure this exchange has been thoroughly dispiriting for all parties involved. But I am sure @anon5422159 is happy because has got me engaging on his forum.
Regards,
Leo
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Firstly please bear in mind that, as of yesterday, I’m no longer owner, admin or moderator of this forum.
I now have no personal vested interest in the participation of anyone here. That said, I hope SE23.life remains popular and I hope that councillors continue to engage. I like how candid you are and I respect you on a personal level.
I’m sorry that you get challenged a lot, but that’s what happens in politics, right? If you make zero-sum policies that help some people by hurting others, then you should expect to hear from the others.
If I were a councillor I would value platforms like this. More so than platforms like Commonplace. Here, you’re interacting with people who are demonstrably invested in the local area, and you’re able to respond in detail to their concerns, if you wish - with your comments reaching thousands of local people.
It’s an opportunity to sell LTN policy by putting forward the hard evidence you used to make the decision in the first place. If the evidence is sufficiently convincing, then the opposition will pipe down. If the evidence isn’t forthcoming, then you’ll have a rough ride until it is.
Disrupting and blocking up the road network will of course get people’s backs up. The burden of proof is on you, in this case, since you (and the other councillors) are the ones who took the action.
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If you can’t handle the heat get out of the kitchen, as they say.
Well, being Heston Blumenthal is fine … if everyone likes experimental cookery.
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I agree, it’s good to have candid open discussion. It’s great to have @LeoGibbons and other councillors here and I’m sure they’re getting good at balancing all the views from all their different communication channels.
Let’s keep it going and keep it civil (and that’s not directed at anyone in particular). This thread has been well debated as some of the hot topics can be: we’ve seen some well presented arguments on both sides.
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I agreed with you that this discussion had run its course but I will tackle two points here that I don’t think you have got. I have added two photos.
I will explain the two photos, the first is the main entrance to Holy Trinity School and the second is the main school buildings which has the road name on it which is Thorpewood Avenue. The main entrance to HT is on TA evidenced by this photo which during normal times would be used by all the children Nobody, not myself has ever asked you or ever will to close off Dartmouth Road.
This is a narrow piece of Thorpewood Avenue, when cars are parked on both sides, it cannot support two way traffic. Traffic has to take turns to go up/down the street. Your proposal means that every car exiting TA will use this bottleneck as the other exit will be closed. This will mean more pollution and congestion. It might be slightly offset by the school street for 2 hours a day but will be added to by the other exit being blocked 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
I am in favour of a School Street but not a half School Street. I am in favour of traffic measures that benefit hundreds of households not just 50. I am in favour of a scheme that benefits both schools not just one school. I don’t in any way feel that it is wrong for wanting something that will benefit the wider community and my family rather than the narrow scheme currently proposed
You have already said multiple times this is what you wanted (“My Ideal”) before you were asked to compromise because of a lack of money.
What confidence would any residents have to just accept and see what happens? If you have a lack of money now, you are unlikely to have money to scrap/amend the scheme and we will be left with it for years if it leads to more congestion and pollution.
I’m a Thorpewood resident and really DON’T want any cameras on my road. I’m furious we haven’t been consulted. There are other ways to deal with traffic issues. Big brother?—no thanks and no more!!! I’m telling the council, no thanks.
Emma obviously feels very strongly about this. Would it be against the forum rules (which I always seem in danger of breaching) to ask whether she has a personal interest, e.g. because of where she lives or because she has connections with one or other of the schools? It would be helpful to know where she’s ‘coming from’.
I think we should view any posts here as having some personal interest. There are very few people that don’t have some form of personal bias.
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Robin, I value my anonymity and have deliberately not used my real name and would ask that you respect that right to post anonymously without disclosing who I am.
I think from my posts you could deduce that I have a connection with Elliot Bank and that in my opinion where I live will be negatively affected by this scheme. I want the best for EB kids when they walk down the road but I also want the same for Holy Trinity kids.
I have tried where possible to do two things:
Ask the right questions and where possible argue with some evidence.
I asked the question about whether the one way system was permanent when you had assumed it would be for 2 hours. I pushed that question and it took 11 days but we got the answer that it would be 24 hours a day.
I have included two photos of Holy Trinity to evidence that the main entrance to Holy Trinity is on Thorpewood Avenue and the bottleneck caused if cars are parked on both sides.
I am biased but would expect people to use their personal judgement in assessing anything I say.
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I look forward to learning precisely the criteria for selecting these two streets. Not clear why we are waiting, unless the decisions were really about social or political expediency, and the ‘evidence’ is being compiled post facto.
Thank you for demonstrating my point, I owe you one.
Just to be clear, I am not in any way trying to get behind your mask. Whatever one might feel personally about the rights and wrongs of being able to post anonymously on a forum like this, one has to follow the rules.
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Thanks for all the responses. @EmmaJ I will speak to officers about what data we can publish (I have previously pushed for the criteria/ data being used to decide on healthy neighbourhoods to be made public because I generally think that more transparency is better) and I will let you know. The reasons for not being able to do this, though, often have to do with officer capacity, as it involves quite a lot of work.
Please do continue to share feedback with us, both here & by email (my email is cllr_sophie.davis@lewisham.gov.uk). As you do, though, I’d appreciate if we can bear in mind that all of us engaging in these forums (including councillors!) do so in good faith, and with the benefit of the community in mind. This is also true of council officers, who are hard-working public servants, working under difficult conditions and doing their best to serve the community.
Finally, to reiterate: this is a trial; we are listening to your feedback as part of an ongoing consultation process; any final decision will be subject to a formal consultation.
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Thanks @SophieDavis , this is a very positive move.
It hopefully will address the concern that the majority of residents will be negatively affected for the sake of 50 households but hopefully we are all proved wrong. This is probably more about the effect of a permanent one way system on half the road than a school street which is only for a small amount of time. A complete road plan was considered initially but now it is only half because of money, were the criteria re-applied against doing it for half the road with the impacts and benefits considered including value for money. I think people do ask that question and anything that answers this in a transparent way will stop people thinking they have no voice.
Hopefully the council have considered this but it would be good if you could get information about the impact of changing the narrow bottleneck on Thorpewood Avenue to be the only exit for traffic. It will now handle twice the traffic. This was not able to handle traffic pre-covid in a two way manner as expected. It handles resident, commuter, teacher, pools and shopper traffic and parking. It is not as busy now because of Covid but when this ends and in the likely event that The Bridge closes permanently, it will attract all the swimming traffic from Forest Hill and Sydenham especially in the evenings and Saturday mornings. I was there when the Swimming Pool rebuild was discussed and the council officials expected 100% of customers to be car free which is why no parking was provided. This has not turned out to be correct and the the answer to feedback about the parking issue this generated has been to ask residents to pay a few hundred pounds so they can park outside their houses.
I think it is great that you are engaging on this forum but I do feel that this represents communication between people who have access to technology. I think the primary means of communication to the residents is the letter that was posted to residents’ houses.
This omits two pieces of key information:
The creation of a permanent one way system for half the road, this needs to be clear from the text and also needs to be put on the map/graphic
The second thing is that the scheme is temporary and subject to a formal consultation and only then does it become permanent.
Most people know the green reasoning so what is really important to people are the details. Is the council planning another letter to residents to include these details so that everybody knows?
Finally, thanks again for the positive and listening post. We are all grateful for the work the council/councillors/officers do and want to make sure it best serves the community.
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