Forum topic: "Quieter Neighbourhoods" consultation to start soon

Andrew Nix said:

"Won't this just make the property of people who live on the Lake Roads even more desirable than they already are. While people who live on Green Lanes, Bourne Hill, etc. can expect even more high speed driving, noise, pollution than there already is?"

The former, as David Hughes says, is indeed likely - and would be a cause for celebration rather than concern. People usually get upset about areas becoming less desirable to live in!

As to your second concern, it's one that I see a lot and I do understand it. I've lived facing a high-speed road and it was pretty miserable, and I wouldn't be happy if I lived on a quiet-ish road to be given plans that say "we're going to funnel high-speed traffic through here for the benefit of your neighbours and not you". Realistically, though, that's not what's happening here - Bourne Hill, Alderman's Hill, and Green Lanes are already roads that carry higher speed traffic, and drivers there travel too fast simply because they feel able to, just like they feel able to slalom down Old Park Road and so on at 35mph. They shouldn't feel able to do this, but that's not a reason for abandoning restrictions entirely - rather it would be great if the restrictions could be extended to the surrounding roads, too, and in fact consistently applied to the entire borough.

Islington council suggests that there has been a 65% fall in road traffic incidents since introducing their 20mph borough-wide limit, in spite of complaints from inconvenienced motorists about the nanny state and driver frustrations and creeping legislation and "why can't we just have common sense".

My long term view is that we should support speed restrictions in residential areas, even where they don't apply to all residential roads. From looking at the behaviour of councils across the city, if a 20mph zone is successful, it tends to be replicated elsewhere - Camden is a good example of an borough with a large network of 20mph zones that the council is looking to turn into a consistent restriction.

Last evenings presentation by Enfield Council seemed to offer a near perfect “bottom up” means of identifying and then addressing any transport related issues within our proposed Quieter Neighbourhood area. Hopefully residents will now respond in good numbers to the documentation due imminently through letter boxes, or via the form on the Council’s web site, with their personal issues (or not) and any ideas.
That said, my main memory of last evening will be four conversations relating to transport issues occurring over the previous week:
1. A nose to nose frontal on Fox Lane requiring low loaders to remove both vehicles with the Fire Service also in attendance
2. An early morning driver on the Mall seemingly launching himself via a speed bump to hit a skip and then turning the car onto its roof in a spectacular landing. 7am seems a little early for stunt-driving.
3. A driver speeding up Aldermans Hill using the opposite carriageway several times to overtake traffic
4. A local youth ending up on the bonnet of a car directly from his bike seat after a car right-turned directly into his path. A life in slow motion scenario applied with the impact obviously going to happen but with no way for the young cyclist to avoid it.
Fortunately not a serious injury amongst this lot it was said but what a portfolio for only one week - and of course there may be more, these being merely random conversations after the public meeting

In addition to Karl's list of significant recent incidents, there's the constant low-level issues that affect quality of life. In Old Park Road its the street arguments, shouting, abuse and aggressive horn use when speeding vehicles meet each other in the middle of the road; a daily, often hourly, occurrence at the south end where there is a modest bend in the road. Or the safety issues as you try and get into your car as a speeding skip truck rattles by. Or the noise in winter as the road becomes a noise tunnel once the leaves drop. Or the challenges for the elderly, infirm or those with children face crossing the road at either end as traffic sweeps in at speed. Or the cars that speed down at up to 60mph (and I've captured them using a Met Police speed gun, accompanied by a PCO). Old Park Road isn't a trunk road, an A road or even a B road. It's a residential street - a street for living in. Something has to change - and hopefully quieter neighbourhoods will deliver...

Another fake “consultation”, this time on our local quieter neighbourhoods, so writes outgoing Winchmore Hill Conservative Cllr Ertan Hurer, in Anthony Webb’s latest Palmers Green & Southgate Life magazine, delivered to households this week.

Which Palmers Green / Southgate Quieter Neighbourhood I wondered? He can’t mean the Connaught Gardens one (that’s the residential area to the east of Green Lanes), since what was proposed is reportedly pretty much bang in line with residents requirements, ultimately developed and agreed over a series of workshops.

So perhaps he means the Fox Lane one? Well consultation input on that one, ignoring a couple of decades worth of available data for a fully acknowledged traffic problem area, included:

- a well-attended residents association meeting, called specifically to discuss traffic related issues (he may recall attending and trying hard to steer attending residents away from any traffic management concept, along with many other party councillors , prospective councillors, failed councillors and a parliamentary candidate, this occurring not long after their full reversal from fully supporting Mini Holland to fully opposing it);

- a hugely attended open public meeting for all residents in the area where council officers and even our last MP spoke (that’s the one where one anti campaigner sought to hog the floor and took to shouting foul language in the host church when finally called to be quiet and sit down by a sizeable proportion of the audience);

- at least one all-household survey;

- an all-household perception survey;

- two workshops with attendees drawn from 250 keen local resident volunteers (being there, and admitting how wrong he had been to help scupper a previous residents-led traffic management attempt, he may recall them);

- a full statutory consultation;

- various ward forums where such items were invariably an agenda item (although he missed the last, very well attended one, where it was not only an agenda item but the relevant lead council officer attended, spoke and answered all questions. That being the one where his potential replacement at the forthcoming council elections was spoken to twice by the attending police to ensure the maintenance of good order);

- and of course the opportunity over this three-year exercise for residents to input issues and concerns to their councillors to pass on to the council, or indeed to simply convey aspects direct to the council via various available channels.

So “fake”, it seems, that the term “fake” has been stretched so far that it came all the way back round to hard reality. Nothing is perfect but for consultation it strikes me as a pretty all-embracing exercise to capture local issues and views. Of course, some individuals won’t like the developed answers – most likely whatever they might have been.