Forum topic: Improving PG "public realm": Your top five suggestions

Ahead of this month's consultation about improving the Public Realm in Palmers Green , what are the five things you would most want to be done?

Mine are as follows:

1. Proper pedestrian crossings between Fox Lane and Bourne Hill, including both those junctions
2. Do something about the mess and overflowing garbage bins in the mews behind the shops in Green Lanes, especially those off Park Avenue
3. Reduce the width of the ends of Hazelwood Lane and Lodge Avenue where they meet Green Lanes so that pedestrians can cross safely
4. The former front gardens of the big houses on the western side of Green Lanes between Fox Lane and St John's Church have been turned into very ugly car parking and are a blot on Palmers Green. Do something to make them look more presentable.
5. Turn the Triangle into a pleasant public space that people are proud of and pedestrians want to spend time in. Look at all options, but don't make traffic the main consideration.

Prompted by the then impending council consultation on the future of Palmers Green Basil Clarke put forward suggestions for the improvement of Palmers Green under the heading “Improving PG ‘public realm’: your top 5 suggestions”, and invited further ideas. No one responded, which is a shame because sharing ideas would have a useful preparation for the consultation which the council undertook on the high street during the following weekend. However, there’s still time to influence the outcome, and the fact that so many of us took part in the consultation exercise may have fostered a deeper engagement with the issues .

So here are my top 6 ideas (I’m bending the rules a bit) in the hope that they might stimulate a debate which will clarify the majority view in the town.

1. Marrying the space and sight lines with the excellent Victorian/Edwardian buildings which define the high street and one side of the eastern end of Aldermans Hill to create an integrated streetscape shaped for pedestrians.

2. Removal of the traffic island at The Triangle (despite the council’s undertaking to retain it) to reveal the more generous triangular space bounded by the excellent buildings, and to integrate it with the rest of the Green Lanes/Aldermans Hill streetscape. Such a move would also enable the creation of a low-speed shared pedestrian/traffic space less dominated by cars and more congenial to people, whilst reducing the poor air quality caused by vehicles held at the traffic lights.

3. Integration of the rail station into the visual and social life of the town.

4. Connecting the large parks/green spaces to the east and west of Green Lanes with the high street and Aldermans Hill by streets calmed to a speed limit of 20mph.

5. Tackling the very ugly parking in front of the ex-houses now commercial premises to the west of Green Lanes from Broomfield Lane to Bourne Hill/Hedge Lane with a design visually incorporating the space into the town.

6. A determined effort hosted by the council to persuade the owners/tenants of the shops to harmonise their shop fronts/take more pride in their appearance in order to increase footfall.

Points 2. and 4. were emphasised for me today by a visit to Muswell Hill where small shops, nicely designed and well looked after, are still thriving. We can match that, can’t we?