SMCC Colts

Brilliant!!! Well done, everyone. Thank you for the update, Brandnewguy. David Cook Streatham & Marlborough Cricket Club (Juniors)

I wrote to our local councillors and am delighted to have received the following response showing how strongly they support the proposal, which I reproduce here with Councillor Andy Simmons' permission... Dear David, Thanks very much for your email. We?ve been campaigning on this for a very long time now and it has been a huge challenge to persuade and cajole Transport for London into bringing forward this proposal for consultation. In the end it took meetings with Sadiq Khan?s Deputy Mayor for Transport and TfL?s Head of Surface Transport to get this moving. TfL have a very strong focus on keeping traffic flowing and have used this issue repeatedly over the years as a reason to refuse to take action. The design that TfL has brought forward involves a two stage crossing with a change in turning priority for westbound traffic on Dulwich Common at the junction. This means that, for example, when pedestrians are crossing halfway from the east side of Lordship Lane towards the Harvester there will be two lanes of traffic turning right from Dulwich Common into Lordship Lane. TfL claim that three straight across crossings would lead to grid lock on the South Circular. We asked for a straight across crossing at each arm of the junction and will include this desire again in our consultation response to Transport for London and continue to lobby for this. We?re also very happy to support the request for a Keep Clear area on Dulwich Common. Best wishes, Andy ---------- Councillor Andy Simmons Labour Councillor for Dulwich Wood Ward

Thanks, Sue. Abe and everyone else, please feel free not to mention in your replies to the consultation that there is a bar near the junction (wishing I hadn't mentioned it now!) but the junction certainly is dangerous. TfL always argued that people should walk the 100m or so to the next set of lights, but we all know that in reality hardly anyone does that. The junction ought to be made safe for pedestrians. End of. (Still an expression) :-)

@Abe_froeman, even if you've not had 2-3 pints or glasses of wine, it's a ridiculously dangerous junction. We have over 200 kids of all ages and their parents coming to training and matches every week in the summer, plus 6-7 men's teams and 2 ladies' teams using the club. A lot of us use the junction as pedestrians and it's a potentially fatal accident waiting to happen unless TfL install pedestrian crossing signals. Please support the proposal. Thanks.

TfL are consulting on putting in some proper pedestrian crossings at the junction of the South Circular and Lordship Lane. https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/roads/a205-dulwich-common-lordship-lane/ This is really important to me because it?s right outside the cricket club that I help to run. Many of our secondary school aged players make their own way to and from the club, and this junction has been a real worry for a long time. Even for adults crossing either on their own or with young children it?s a pretty terrifying junction to cross. We also have a lot of adults using the crossing as pedestrians under the influence of alcohol. This includes both senior players after matches and a period of time in the bar, and parents of kids every Friday evening during the summer when we also have the bar open and many parents enjoy a good few glasses of well deserved refreshment. I enquired about this junction to local councillors many years ago and was told that they had already been lobbying TfL (who control the South Circular, not Southwark) for years without success. It is, in my humble view, many, many years overdue that this absolute no-brainer of a safety improvement gets done. In my view, the following two changes should also be made to the proposal: a) Turn the third crossing point (the one nearest the church) into one that has pedestrian signals also. Why would you not? It?s not in the nature of people (especially young people) to walk extra yards in order to use another crossing. They will use the shortest route. I would say it?s a ?must have? that all three crossing points have pedestrian signals. b) Add ?KEEP CLEAR? areas on the road opposite the cricket club and tennis club so that cars can more safely pull out, rather than having to dart out into the moving line of cars. I have been doing this manoeuvre about twice a week for the last four years, and it?s nearly always a case of having to drive into the westbound lane in order to try to get motorists in the eastbound lane to let you in. It is often a slightly hurried and precarious move. A ?KEEP CLEAR? area would make this substantially safer, especially during periods such as 7pm on Tuesdays and Fridays, when we have a change-over between two junior training sessions and we have 20-30 cars trying to leave the car-park at the same time. I?d be hugely grateful to anyone filling in the consultation form to support the changes, and especially if you could back up my two proposed changes mentioned above. Thank you. David Cook Streatham & Marlborough Cricket Club Juniors (https://sites.google.com/view/smccjuniors/smcc-juniors) and I?m also a local resident who would like to use the junction with my two kids aged 8 and 10 to get to Dulwich Park.

Hi, Great to hear she's interested in cricket. There are several cricket clubs in the Dulwich area that provide cricket for kids - the most local to Dulwich being Streatham & Marlborough Cricket Club (where I help run junior cricket at), Dulwich Cricket Club and Alleyn Cricket Club. At Streatham & Marlborough (despite the name, based between East Dulwich and Forest Hill) we currently take kids from school year 1. We are thinking about running something for kids in Reception, but we don't have that set up just yet. There is a club search feature on the ECB's website here: https://www.ecb.co.uk/play/junior Please note that although the ECB site says that for kids under 9 to search in the All Stars section, there are in fact a lot of clubs in this area (such as Streatham & Marlborough) that already provided cricket for under 9s that is not branded as All Stars, so it's worth searching for all local clubs and taking a look at their websites to see what they provide. If you'd like to find out more about cricket at Streatham & Marlborough, our website is here: https://sites.google.com/view/smccjuniors/smcc-juniors Or you can email me at [email protected]