More Quieter Neighbourhood consultations launched

Why is it only the affluent areas are being supported for 'Quieter Neighbourhood.. I live at the top of Hedge Lane near Green Lanes and are bombarded with speeding vehicles coming down from affluent areas e.g. Bourne Hil etc, when I first moved in here several years ago it was so peaceful but now it's non stop traffic and the speed they come down from Bourne Hill is so dangerous, I've asked for speed signs and no reply from the Council, yet it's on Green Lanes and Bourne Hill...it is so dangerous to cross here and also park, the council refuse to lower the pavement for some of us who lives from No 1 to about No 18...Enfield Council must do something about these areas as well, after all we all pay our Council Taxes just like those living in those affluent areas. thanks for reading.

Enfield Council are working to a programme of thirty plus Quieter Neighbourhoods over several years which will span the complete Borough and in doing so cover all aspects of the Boroughs relative affluence, be it based on where people live, or drive to / from / through. Several of the early pilots are here in the south west of the Borough; I assume because of its known traffic issues.

Hedge Lane is a boundary of the current Connaught Gardens Quieter Neighbourhood consultation. Details are on the Council web site where I suspect you can contribute.

The speeding problems you highlight are relatively common and I believe very well-known regarding Hedge Lane from Councillors to our MP. What to do? Perhaps at the top of the tree is the Mayors comment, “It is time we collectively recognised that we need to move beyond our dependence on the internal combustion engine.” That quote, from “Leading to a Greener London”, led to his Transport Strategy, to A Vision for Cycling and ultimately Mini Holland / Cycle Enfield / Quieter Neighbourhoods. So responding to the current consultation is probably in a sensible direction.

Otherwise, some Boroughs have gone with 20mph limits. The campaign “20’s Plenty” currently has a lot of traction in Winchmore Hill where some roads suffer speed problems. You could join that or start a more local based campaign focused on your more immediate area.

And these things are often not one dimensional,: at a guess I would suspect based on location you will fall into the one quarter of Londoners exposed to road traffic noise above WHO guidelines – a line which is referred to as leading to “serious community annoyance”. There are many such annoyed people and to be fair, Enfield Council are now doing a great deal to finally try and get to grips with much of the issue, winning a large investment pot from The Mayor to do exactly that.

I'm sure that Quieter Neighbourhoods aren't being designed in terms of affluence. Two of the latest are Haselbury Road and Main Avenue. Haselbury (north of Silver Street and south of Edmonton Church Street) is hardly an affluent area, and while the western part of the Main Avenue zone (Bush Hill Park) is very well off, that's certainly not the case with the eastern part.

Hedge Lane is wedged between two quieter neighbourhoods. But unfortunately, such an important main road as Hedge Lane could never be part of a Quieter Neighbourhood - I think that it probably carries more traffic than Green Lanes. That said, the authorities - and in this case probably the GLA rather than Enfield - owe it to the hundreds of people living along your road to make their life more tolerable. They could start by enforcing the speed limit and preferably by lowering it to 20mph.

As Karl points out, the longer term solution is to reduce the number of cars on the road by encouraging other methods of transport. Cycle Enfield will hopefully help, though it won't do much for Hedge Lane as things stand.

The latest news is that at least so far as the Fox Lane area goes the whole project has slipped back, if that's not an understatment.

There were questions raised at workshops as to whether it made sense to instigate QNs until cycle enfield has been implemented. If implemented traffic patterns on the main through routes would change and changes to QN might well be needed. I think that the the counter argument was that we needed to get on with QN now to deal with existing problems, and that adjustments could be made later.

Given the delay in arranging further workshops I asked what was happening.

The answer from Andy Ruffell, Traffic and Transportation is as follows:

We have compiled a provisional programme for restarting the Quieter Neighbourhood Design Workshops, which currently indicates that we would look to restart the workshops for the Fox Lane area in January 2017.

This programme is however, subject to change depending on the outcome and progress of the Green Lanes Cycle Enfield scheme.

Colin Younger

Surely 2017 is a typo, Colin?

I have asked LBE to confirm the date, but the Main Avenue QN has been told:

The Council has recently undertaken a review of the Quieter Neighbourhood Programme and it has been decided to postpone further design work until the completion of any adjacent main road cycle routes.

This is to determine the effect these schemes may have on traffic travelling through the adjacent neighbourhoods. Once this is clear we will then restart the Quieter Neighbourhoods Programme so it can address any new issues as well as existing ones

This tends to support the 2017 date. If I get a correction from LBE I will pass it on.
Colin

Thanks Colin