Forum topic: FLDRA and the Quieter Neighbourhood

Very disappointed to read this month's FLDRA Newsletter - it seems the Committee don't support residents' concerns about rat-running and the desire for a Quieter Neighbourhood. Their views are not representative of the residents they purport to represent.

Adrian - this is a consistent problem with FLDRA and which I have complained about before. Basically the people that run it pretend they speak for the whole estate, based solely of their own opinions and, if you're lucky, one or two conversations with other residents.

It is disgraceful conduct, frankly. A law unto themselves.

I've copied the note below, Colin (for those who haven't seen it). To me it has a car-centric perspective and says little about the potential benefits to cyclists, pedestrians and people in houses/gardens. Given the obesity crisis and air pollution challenges we need radical solutions to discourage rat-running and un-necessary local trips.

[i]A number of residents responded to our request for comment - some copying in Cllr Daniel Anderson. Others were posted on Palmers Green Community Newsletter. All were asking for more planters - whether in The Mall, Selbourne or Lakeside. In the view of the committee we need to ensure that the implementation is flexible and any unwanted consequences can be potentially reversed. We should also remember that we ourselves will be impacted not just those "unwanted rat runners". We should also ask ourselves which of these roads do we ourselves use - e.g. getting between Cannon Hill and Fox Lane. Just a thought ..... In summary the committee have the following concerns:

• W9 bus - impact of planters on entries and exits from Cranley Gardens. This does not seem thought through
• Likely severe congestion into Ulleswater/Conway - due to shift of school run traffic from Cannon Road and of the planters.
• Potential accidents and backups on Aldermans Hill and Fox Lane due to restricted entries
• Knock on effects onto other roads - the "toothpaste tube effect" as traffic shifts to alternative routes
• Entry to Selbourne and Mall does not seem thought through if planters are t be added to already narrowed entries

“You really have to differentiate between opposition and legitimate comments on its execution.” Is fair comment, but coming as the latest of a long line of such legitimate comments, all being negative, with never a hint of balancing positivity, plus a committee resignation said to be driven by such exasperation, and the risk is people start to make their minds up.

Just picking up the quoted listing of FLDRA's history of traffic control:

Speedwatch, originally a wider local project covering many roads, both in Fox Lane area and well beyond, run by the MPS in Ponders End and Peckham, comprehensively failed (although was great fun). The later FLDRA effort on local roads mentioned might well have learnt from that experience, as was suggested at the time;

Seeking 20mph limits throughout the area was a long -term project undertaken by a group called Streets for Living, rather than FLDRA;

The zebra on Aldermans Hill was a result of my independent effort (as were the two traffic islands on the Bourne at the end of Caversham). There was no FLDRA involvement in either, although there was certainly local opposition to the former;

Robert Molteno was triggered by Andy Barker, David Hughes and myself, albeit deliberately facilitated through FLDRA. Clare of course integrated herself into that opportunity.

It would certainly be positive for the area were FLDRA to engage in seeking traffic control measures for the benefit and health of residents. I struggle to recall many valid examples.

Adrian. Thank you. And as per my first reading when sent from FLDRA, my reading of that is totally inline with yours and Karl's, not Colin's (birds of a feather?).

Essentially this is the age old issue of a "committee" decided to (mis)represent an entire area based on its own views and over-sell its self-importance.

The W9 comment is legitimate and has been made by others (and I've complained about the school street being nice idea but ill-thought through) however the rest is a complete crock and supportive solely of the entirely car/driver centric tone of the response. They may as well have saved a few hundred words and just said "Balls to it all, I just want unencumbered use of my car, me me me, car car car".

Personally I don't think it is time to close this thread.

The little spat engendered by David E. carries with it a whole panorama of underlying issues about what I think of as the misuse of an excellent tool for living. Cars are wonderfully flexible/adaptable/useful, but in the numbers now extant, used in the way they are now used, they are a scourge on air quality, on road space/destruction of gardens, on the cohesion of communities, on personal fitness, on the liability of serious accidents (so called), on children's independence (a huge scandal), on the landscape, on social interaction within communities. We need to keep hammering on about this, and not just among the few people who contribute to discussions on this website.

FLDRA's response to the Quieter Neighbourhood is a classic example in that it seems clear to me that, Karl B, Adrian D. & David E., think about the issues quite differently to Colin Y.

I live on Conway Road and this afternoon I had things to do outside the front of the house around the end of the school day. The number of driver-only large or very large cars was staggering, as was their speed. It was a procession. The amount of fuel used and exhaust emitted for one little body in each car at school was staggering. I may be jumping to a erroneous conclusion, but I'd take a bet that the people who contributed to FLDRA's response to the QN would barely have noticed that in a residents-only street lots of fuel was being wasted, that the emissions were high, and that for half an hour or more the street became very unpleasant.