Streatham Wells LTN

​

Summary of Streatham Wells LTN design stage consultation report - 22nd MAY 2023

​

Streatham Wells LTN decision, Monday 22nd May

 

Introduction

Lambeth Council has just released its 118-page summary engagement report, following on from the Streatham Wells LTN design stage consultation that ran between November and January.  Here is a link to the full report:

https://streathamwells.commonplace.is/en-GB/news/summary-engagement-report-published

 

Summary of design stage consultation responses

Approximately 65% of respondents were unhappy with the design from the perspective of driving, cycling and walking.  It would be interesting to hear as to whether or not this majority view of unhappiness with the design will in any way have changed on the back of Lambeth Council’s minor amendments announced so far to their original design.  Unfortunately, we shall never know that answer, as Lambeth Council will now be trialing the LTN in the summer or autumn, subject only to statutory consultation to take place with the emergency services and TfL over the next month or so.

 

As you will see from the attached table, the majority of respondents were not only unhappy with each of the design proposals for 6 of the 7 traffic filters – the 7th is under the remit of TfL, as detailed below – and 3 bus gates, but also with the street improvement recommendations upon which Lambeth Council also consulted.

​

TABLE

​

 

 

 

 

​

Lambeth Council’s amendments to its original LTN design

Diagrams of both the original LTN design proposal and this amended version are shown below:

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

1. Traffic filters

Whilst it is encouraging that Lambeth Council has decided to cut out 2 traffic filters (please see bullet points below for further information on this), the fact that final decisions remain up in the air in relation to the proposed traffic filters at each of Hopton Road and Pinfold Road – until such time as Lambeth Council has engaged and co-designed schemes on those two roads with local residents and businesses – means that it is still a moot point as to whether or not those particular two traffic filters will remain in place or be taken out of the final design.

 

No decisions will be taken in relation to the design for major street improvements around Pinfold Road and Hopton Road until all other parts of the LTN have been introduced in the summer or autumn. There will also be further analysis work undertaken on Shrubbery Road, which consequently will not become one-way from the outset of the trial. Further assessment is due to be undertaken there in the months ahead, which will include further discussions with TfL, who require to see other access points to the area if entry to Shrubbery Road from Streatham High Road were to be curtailed.   

 

The only immediate confirmed changes to the original proposals in relation to the traffic filters are as follows:

 

• As a consequence of a bus gate relocation on Valley Road (please see below), the Harborough Road traffic filter will not now be put in place and that road will remain one-way.

• The traffic filter on Valleyfield Road will not now proceed, mainly on account of the steep incline of the road and the dangers associated with cars that would have been trying to turn around there.

 

The summation of where things stand with regard to the original 7 traffic filters is that only 3 will now remain during the first part of the trial period, namely one each at the intersection of Leigham Avenue and Conifer Gardens with Leigham Court Road and the other at the junction of Culverhouse Gardens with Leigham Court Road.  As mentioned above, the third is at Gracefield Gardens and is under the remit of TfL.

 

  2. Bus gates

All of the 3 bus gates proposed in the original design will remain – one on the bridge at Gleneldon Road, one at the mini-roundabout junction of Gleneldon Road with Valley Road, and the third one will be relocated from adjacent to Sunnyhill Road and Valley Road Surgery to the north end of Valley Road just up from Caroline Close. As mentioned above, this bus gate relocation means that there is now no need for a traffic filter on Harborough Road, which will also now remain a one-way road.

 

  Next steps

The Streatham Wells LTN trial will take place in the summer/autumn for an initial six-month period.  During this period objections will be able to be made. Please note, however, that any objections that you may have made as part of your design stage consultation response will now only be “considered when the LTN trial phase is initiated”.

 

Streatham Action Transport Group has put out a request to Lambeth Council’s transport planner for this LTN, Luuk van Kessel, to attend a Zoom meeting at some point soon, in order both to talk us through the above confirmed changes and likely time periods associated not only with decisions on Hopton Road, Pinfold Road and Shrubbery Road, but also with the many proposed street improvements, each of which are referred to in the attached table.

 

If you are not already on Streatham Action Transport Group’s email circulation list and would like to attend this online Zoom meeting on one weekday evening, yet to be determined, over the next couple of weeks, then please email me at vicechair@streathamaction.org.uk to confirm your request to receive a Zoom invitation.  In that request, please specify the road on which you live. We shall then have an understanding in advance of the meeting as to the areas within the LTN where attendees live.

 

 

Neil Salt

Chair, Streatham Action Transport Group

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Latest Update - March 2023

​

Subsequent to Streatham Action's petition to Lambeth Council having been formally presented to a full Council meeting on 25th January by Cllr Martin Abrams - the petition secured 1,371 signatories - Streatham Action received a response from the Council, which had been approved by Cllr Rezina Chowdhury as the Cabinet Member responsible for LTNs.

 

Neil Salt, in his capacity as Streatham Action’s lead petitioner and Vice Chair, subsequently requested a follow-up meeting with Cllr Chowdhury and one or more of her transport planner colleagues to discuss next steps beyond both Streatham Action's petition and responses received to it. Such a virtual meeting took  place on Wednesday 8th March, with Streatham Action also represented by Ali Angus in her capacity as Secretary of Streatham Action, and with Lambeth Council represented by Cllr Chowdhury and two of her transport planner colleagues, Josh Learner and Luuk van Kessel.

 

At this meeting, it was confirmed that the transport planner team was still analysing responses received to the design stage consultation and that its full report will be produced in or around April.  Lambeth Council’s letter to all Streatham Wells residents on 23rd December had already indicated that its Streatham Wells trial LTN, if pursued, would include some amendments to the original design proposal appearing on its Commonplace website during the extended consultation period that ended on 8th January.

 

Much of our 8th March meeting was taken up in discussing a counterproposal that Streatham Action had received from a Streatham Wells local resident in response to the petition, in which that local resident had made some suggestions for a number of traffic interventions on Valley Road that might thereby allow for Valley Road to remain open to through-traffic as a means of trialling a major traffic intervention short of  a fully-fledged Streatham Wells LTN, as a potential starting point for rectifying the long problematic traffic and safety issues on Valley Road.

 

It is important to note that Streatham Action was neither for nor against this counterproposal, but nonetheless  keen for Lambeth Council to be presented with a counterproposal for its transport planners to consider as one such alternative traffic intervention falling short of a fully-fledged LTN – an aspect referred to within the petition.

 

The upshot of the meeting was that Lambeth Council's transport planners, whilst unwilling to consider any such recommendation further in place of a Streatham Wells trial LTN, will nonetheless discuss those recommendations put forward potentially to form part of a forthcoming Kerbside Strategy for Valley Road, once the Kerbside Strategy Manager is in place.  

 

It was clear to Ali Angus and Neil Salt both from this meeting and from Lambeth Council’s official response to our Streatham Action petition at the end of January - a link to that is already available in a prior update on our website - that nothing short of a trial Streatham Wells LTN would seem to fulfil Lambeth Council’s policy objectives contained within both its 2019 Transport Strategy and its 2022 Climate Action Plan. 

 

We shall all await sight of Lambeth Council’s final Streatham Wells trial LTN design in or around April, which will then be required formally to go to statutory consultation, ie securing the approval of the emergency services, prior to trial implementation beyond that.

​

​

Latest Update -February 2023

​

Thank you to the 1,371 people who signed our recent petition and to Cllr. Martin Abrams who formally presented it at Lambeth's full council meeting on Wednesday 25th January.  

 

We received a response from Lambeth Council, approved by the Cabinet Member responsible for LTNs, Cllr Rezina Chowdhury, on Monday 30th January.  The response can be accessed by clicking on this link:  

 

https://moderngov.lambeth.gov.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?id=549

 

Please be sure, however, to scroll down to the end of the petition wording to view LBL's response.

 

Streatham Action's committee meets on Monday 13th February to discuss next steps and we shall update with further information after that.

​

Update Information regarding the recent Streatham Action Petition on Streatham Wells LTN proposals can be found HERE

​

Happy Christmas from Streatham Action

This newsletter is mostly to provide an important update on our response to the live consultation about the Streatham Wells Low Traffic Neighbourhood, including the launch of a Streatham Action petition.

However, we would first like to take this opportunity to wish all our newsletter subscribers a Happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year.

Thank you to everyone who has been involved with our activities during the last challenging year.

As discussed at our AGM. we will be starting 2023 with a range of events on other topics including practical support with the cost of living, further "community conversation" events, and a micro-grant scheme for local volunteering.

Best wishes,
Robert Hill, Chair
Neil Salt, Vice Chair
Ali Angus, Secretary
Robert Doyle, co-Treasurer
Brian Storey, co-Treasurer
 

Streatham Wells
Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN)  Update
 

Thanks to those many who braved the very cold evening and also the very cold venue - due to the heating having broken down - of St Peter’s Church to attend Streatham Action's public meeting about the Streatham Wells LTN on Wednesday 7th December. This end-of-year letter is written as much to those of you who didn’t attend that meeting as it is to those who did:
 
The fact that there were upwards of 300 people in attendance at this public meeting indicate the strength of feelings expressed at it.
 
In a vote taken at the end of the evening, well over 90% made clear that they felt that they had not been consulted by Lambeth Council.

On the back of that vote a letter was sent by our Vice Chair, Neil Salt, on behalf of all of us as a team of Streatham Action Officers, to Clr Rezina Chowdhury, the Lambeth Cabinet member who leads on LTNs, stating our view that a momentum of discontent will grow unless Lambeth Council backtracks from consulting solely on the detailed design of a Streatham Wells LTN  without also providing residents/local businesses with the opportunity to opt instead for some more limited traffic interventions.
 

 

Streatham Wells design stage consultation extended

The design consultation site is online on the "Commonplace" website. 
https://streathamwells.commonplace.is/

Lambeth Council have recently agreed to extend the deadline for responding to this design stage consultation from today, Friday 23rd December, to Sunday 8th January.  This would be your last chance to have influence over the various aspects concerning the Streatham Wells LTN, prior to the trial period commencing in summer 2023 (see below).

For help in ensuring that you have responded to all 3 sections of the survey, please see our guidance at the end of this email.

Residents living within the proposed Streatham Wells LTN area should have today received a letter confirming the new deadline, and acknowledging a few issues already raised regarding access to the “red area”, local access to Shrubbery Road and street improvements outside Julian’s School, and providing further timelines on the process of proceeding with the LTN, as follows:

-          “Winter 2022/23”: LBL will publish its final designs – based on feedback received from this current survey and other engagement activities - in its Decision Report on the “trial LTN”, which will be published online.

-          “Spring 2023”: The statutory consultation – conducted only with statutory consultees such as the police and fire brigade – will then take place

-          “Summer 2023”: The Streatham Wells LTN trial begins, on the back of an Experimental Traffic Order having been secured. At this stage anyone will be able to lodge a formal objection. Any such objections must be made within 6 months of the ETO commencing.

-          “Date To Be Confirmed": A Decision Report on the future of the LTN will be written and recommendations provided, based on quantitative and qualitative data collected and analysed including all the objections received.”

Streatham Action petition
to Lambeth Council:

 .
We are grateful that Lambeth has extended the consultation process, and has now sent a mailshot to all residents.

However, the shared view of the officers of Streatham Action is that we still do not think that this addresses the issue - raised by so many people at the public meeting - that they do not feel consulted as to whether or not the many traffic interventions of this LTN are really what is needed for the Streatham Wells area.

Following on from our letter to Cllr Chowdhury, we are therefore today launching a petition to Lambeth Council, which calls on them:

-    to defer implementation of any Streatham Wells LTN, following on from the current design stage consultation ending on 8th January and possible adjustments beyond that, and

-    to send letters instead to all residents and./or businesses in the Streatham Wells area during the second half of January asking for a choice to be made between:  
 

a)    implementing a Streatham Wells LTN, as currently proposed, subject to any minor adjustments Lambeth consider necessary following the design stage consultation;  OR
 
b)    implementing a more limited set of traffic interventions, following a further consultation to choose between specific options in the spring, as a means of addressing various acknowledged Streatham Wells traffic issues.
 
Please click on the link below to take you to this petition, which is now live on the Lambeth Council Petitions website:
 
Petition: Delay decisions on Streatham Wells LTN until all residents are consulted by letter
 
If you want to register your support to the petition, please respond as soon as possible.  You will need to provide your name, email, address and postcode for your response to be counted.

Please also circulate the link widely amongst others living in or around the Streatham Wells area.

How to make your views known using Lambeth's Commonplace website

Although our petition calls for a pause to find out whether or not local residents and businesses want to see further consultation on a more limited set of traffic interventions, falling short of a LTN, we would still encourage everyone in the effected area to participate in the current consultation process.

We have received comments that many people were confused when trying to engage with the Commonplace website.  Some of these problems may have been because links were shared on social media to individual pages rather than to the introduction.

Here is some further guidance to assist if you would like to complete the Streatham Wells design stage consultation:

Stage 1 – click on “LTN design” and answer the two questions - agree or disagree - at the bottom of that page
 
Stage 2 – click back on “Home” page and then click on “Modal Filters” i.e. locations where motor vehicle traffic will be restricted in some way..

Please give your views on each of the filter sites that you want to comment on:
a)      Is the filter at the correct location on that road
b)      If not, why
 
If you wish to add a further comment, please click on the yellow wording “Add something else.”
 
You can respond to all or any of the 7 of modal filters listed:
-          Leigham Avenue
-          Culverhouse Gardens
-          Gleneldon Road
-          Valley Road (North)
-          Valley Road (South)
-          Valleyfield Road
-          Harborough Road
 
There is also, beyond the “Add something else” section the opportunity to mention as to:
 
c)      how the spaces could be used in other ways.
 
Reclick on “Home” and Click on “Street Improvements”. Please click on each of the 6 “major improvements” locations listed, namely:
 
-          Hopton Road
-          Pinfold Road
-          Sunnyhill Road
-          Valley Road
-          Shrubbery Road
-          Leigham Court Road
 
Within each of these” major improvements”, not only do you have the opportunity to answer two further questions relating to:
 
a)      what features you would like to see in the space
b)      tagging why you may not be happy with the current design proposal
 
but also with the opportunity fo you to add further comments under each of those two design questions.
 
Beyond that, you also have the opportunity to upload:
 
c)      your own design proposals
 
Also within the section on “Street improvements”, please click on the orange section entitled “last page of this section”.  This will then allow you to give a view on “minor improvements” that are recommended relating to:
 
-          tree planting opportunities
-          cycle infrastructure opportunities
-          parklet opportunities.

​

​

​