Melbourne Grove South Barrier

[first mate]

Any barrier should be easily removable for emergency access. This would not affect the walking or cycling aspect. However, the barriers indicated, along with the double yellow lines, look to be far more permanent, despite all the empty rhetoric around feedback to see if they make a positive difference.

I am also sure this council is more than capable of dressing up a different agenda to look as though it is meeting govt imposed legal obligations, after all, who has oversight or is checking?

rollflick Wrote:

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> This scheme is about enabling far more people to

> walk and cycle, in recognition that capacity on

> public transport is seriously limited due to

> social distancing.

>

> Melbourne Grove has been repeatedly designated as

> a future local cycling route but the council has

> failed to deliver. Trouble is the council has now

> also failed to communicate this plan or explain

> that it has a legal obligation to provide for

> dramatically increased levels of walking and

> cycling.

>

> Given this legal obligation, anyone writing into

> the council to complain based on the comments in

> this thread is wasting their time, as well as

> that of officers and councillors. If you have a

> better suggestion that can be delivered in a

> similar length of time that could be different.

> Certainly there is a case for also filtering

> Crystal Palace Road too (rather than as an

> alternative).

[Abe_froeman]

what kind of cycle route would they put in on Melbourne Grove?!

[Earl Aelfheah]

If the council want to make it easier for people to social distance and support local shops as things start opening up again, then the single most pressing local challenge is along Lordship Lane.

Then there is the need to quickly create space outside of schools (which they are taking some action on, but not everywhere).

Lastly, they should be looking to create segregated cycle lanes into central London to enable people to get to work, whilst avoiding public transport or having to resort to cars. This could most obviously be done along the 'Southwark Spine' route (so down Crystal palace and Bellenden Road an on northwards). They need to be radical. All they have done so far is to bring forward a few discrete projects they had planned already.

Lambeth on the other hand are creating new 'low traffic' neighbourhoods, widening pavements and creating previously unplanned cycle routes. They are acting with urgency.

We need much bolder and strategic action.

[Earl Aelfheah]

Or even bring some of the cycle hire schemes to the south of the borough

[snowy]

That?s taking place - both new permanent sites and temporary ones.

[ianr]

rollflick wrote:

-----------------

> Melbourne Grove has been repeatedly

> designated as a future local cycling

> route but the council has failed to

> deliver. Trouble is the council has now

> also failed to communicate this plan or

> explain that it has a legal obligation

> to provide for dramatically increased

> levels of walking and

> cycling.

Where do the designation and the legal obligation reside?

[first mate]

I expect we may not always be on the same page but I agree and this tunnel vision, pick and mix approach will increase pressure on Lordship Lane and ED Grove...while a handful of residents reap the benefits.

You cannot put the needs of one section of the community before everyone else. Of course we must protect children but it is not only about children and cyclists. We must also consider the needs of those who cannot cycle and who may not be able to walk very far. We absolutely must consider access for emergency services, especially now. The Council and its stakeholders are not thinking this through, instead they are reverting to old ideas and coveted solutions, in an almost blinkered manner, and repurposing them to fit the moment and legal obligations.

I still fear that underpinning the above is an eye to CPZ and generating income in future. If emergency measures were really a genuine and thinking response to the current situation I suspect the solutions might look a bit different. The fact that they are old, pre-covid ideas just looks dodgy.

rahrahrah Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> If the council want to make it easier for people

> to social distance and support local shops as

> things start opening up again, then the single

> most pressing local challenge is along Lordship

> Lane.

>

> Then there is the need to quickly create space

> outside of schools (which they are taking some

> action on, but not everywhere).

>

> Lastly, they should be looking to create

> segregated cycle lanes into central London to

> enable people to get to work, whilst avoiding

> public transport or having to resort to cars. This

> could most obviously be done along the 'Southwark

> Spine' route (so down Crystal palace and Bellenden

> Road an on northwards). They need to be radical.

> All they have done so far is to bring forward a

> few discrete projects they had planned already.

>

> Lambeth on the other hand are creating new 'low

> traffic' neighbourhoods, widening pavements and

> creating previously unplanned cycle routes. They

> are acting with urgency.

>

> We need much bolder and strategic action.

[exdulwicher]

Lambeth on the other hand are creating new 'low traffic' neighbourhoods, widening pavements and creating previously unplanned cycle routes. They are acting with urgency.

We need much bolder and strategic action.

Agree with what @rahrahrah said above. Piecemeal bits here and there don't work (or at least, any benefits are very tiny because people don't change their habits for such a tiny inconvenience, they just drive around it).

Would have been the ideal time to put in the full Healthy Streets plan on a temporary basis. Lambeth have got some good stuff going on actually, the vast majority of it has been well managed.

[first mate]

The definition of what constitutes ?healthy? has shifted with Covid. Accessible and equitable social distancing across the community is what we need and the needs of the elderly and extremely vulnerable are especially important and must be carefully considered. Emergency access is vital for them as is the ability to travel by whatever means they are able to, safely. I am not wholly convinced that the old plans meet those needs but I may be wrong.

[Rockets]

That's the point the council seems to overlook - traffic doesn't just disappear - it goes another route.

Look at the origins of the lie the council was telling in relation to a supposed 40% increase in traffic through the Dulwich Village area to try to justify the "improvements" they were suggesting (and will now roll-out under their Covid emergency powers). The 40% increase they touted was an increase in traffic between the time they were doing the roadworks (when traffic dropped hugely as DC became impassable) and then the time after the works were completed. The numbers went back up to something slightly lower than before the roadworks very quickly thereafter. It doesn't take a PHD in traffic management to realise that during the period of the roadworks the traffic found another route.

All of the measures being put in place by the council under their Covid powers are all designed to stop through traffic (DV, Champion Hill, Melbourne Grove, Goodrich Road) but they haven't spent any time trying to work out where that traffic will go next and what impact that will have on the roads not being closed to traffic. The utopian view of the world is that everyone will jump on bikes or walk - yet they won't - no-one is stupid enough to actually believe that.

[exdulwicher]

We absolutely must consider access for emergency services, especially now.

It's more or less the first thing that gets considered. Councils and emergency services are very used to this - any time roadworks and/or temporary restrictions go in (digging up streets for gas works etc), the emergency services all have full advance notice.

There are slightly different legal proceedings depending on the exact nature of / reason for the closure and the location and permanency of any barrier(s) but emergency services are usually involved right from the start of planned closures like this.

[first mate]

Blocking off major access points does not seem helpful in that respect. Moreover, digging up streets where utilities have failed is in itself an emergency. This is about facilitating social distancing. It is still not clear how these road blocks will help in that respect. Again, the barriers could and should be fully permeable- removable for emergency access. Instead, we understand, they will be immovable.

[ed_pete]

On the other thread when I asked about emergency services James McAsh's response was:

"Yes emergency services need to be consulted before any measures like this are put in."

Sounds like they haven't been consulted yet.

[first mate]

Normally Emergency Services would be statutory consultees for any planned road closures...they have to be so they know alternative routes. However, the legal imperative of these measures leaves their input much less clear, the measures are being framed as temporary but implemented with some very permanent looking structures. Plus emergency services have a lot to consider right now and we do not know how all this is/ will be presented to them. For instance, is it a matter of ?residents were asked and over 80% of respondents were in favour?. If something along those lines why would statutory consultees object?

It does not feel transparent. As I keep saying, how convenient that the very measures the council has pushed for years now are, miraculously, the solution for the effects of the pandemic and social distancing requirements.

[exdulwicher]

As I keep saying, how convenient that the very measures the council has pushed for years now are, miraculously, the solution for the effects of the pandemic and social distancing requirements.

I'd be more concerned and worried if the council had said "all these things that we've been consulting on and modelling and surveying people with a rough general idea of expected traffic outcomes - yeah well we're not going to do any of that post-Covid, we're actually going to do a whole host of completely unrelated stuff which we've suddenly decided is better".

Not saying they're right or wrong at the moment but they're only NAL barriers (blocks of concrete). Can take them out in a couple of hours.

[Charles Notice]

With all your posts and information have you been offered a consulting job from Southwark yet?

[first mate]

But we are not talking post covid, these measures are framed as the Council response to Covid and social distancing requirements.

2 hours is a fair chunk of time to remove a ?temporary? barrier. No reason it cannot be made permeable to certain types of traffic, especially emergency services.

exdulwicher Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> As I keep saying, how convenient that the very

> measures the council has pushed for years now are,

> miraculously, the solution for the effects of the

> pandemic and social distancing requirements.

>

> I'd be more concerned and worried if the council

> had said "all these things that we've been

> consulting on and modelling and surveying people

> with a rough general idea of expected traffic

> outcomes - yeah well we're not going to do any of

> that post-Covid, we're actually going to do a

> whole host of completely unrelated stuff which

> we've suddenly decided is better".

>

> Not saying they're right or wrong at the moment

> but they're only NAL barriers (blocks of

> concrete). Can take them out in a couple of hours.

[Rockets]

It was emergency service access that ultimately forced Lambeth to have to relent on the Loughborough junction debacle - not access along the individual roads that had been closed per se but for the chaos and gridlock it caused on surrounding roads which greatly increased response times for the emergency services. The London Ambulance service couldn't get Lambeth to listen so they had to go to Kate Hoey who wrote to the council and demanded they remove the scheme as it was putting patients at risk. It was only then that Lambeth listened.

Lambeth had completely failed to consider the impact of such closures on surrounding streets and I fear the same thing is happening here.

[lpool]

Having given this further thought, to ensure the council achieves its objective and does not accidentally push traffic onto side roads from Melbourne Grove, they should consider a series of No Left Turn signs along Melbourne Grove. This will ensure all vehicles on Melbourne Grove have to stay on the road to reach Lordship Lane. This will help reduce traffic flows on side roads and also prevent vehicles where driver unaware of barrier, doing a U-Turn and using Ashbourne Grove instead.

[first mate]

Do you mean no left turns off LL into those roads. How would residents get onto their streets?

What about volume Of traffic on Lordship Lane and ED Grove, that also have schools and a medical centre within yards of the road? Additionally, what about social distancing next to all the shops?

I suppose we can then narrow LL to further block through traffic and enable pedestrians on the road but that will hamper the regional economy and cause issues for those using public transport and emergency services access.

[ed_pete]

I think lpool meant no left turn from MG into Ashborne/Chesterfield/Blackwater etc, forcing the residents to enter and exit MG at LL junction. Not going to happen. Whole scheme is idiotic.

[first mate]

As they are doing on Goodrich we need to object to this. At the very least, it can be a barrier that can be closed for school times and lifted for the rest, that way emergency services can get access all the time. This notion of a ?temporary? barrier using great concrete bollards is Cllr Livingstone nonsense.

[Rockets]

According to a Onedulwich.uk update sent tonight the emergency orders have been approved and the Dulwich Village barriers will be installed within 9 days. I presume all the others in Melbourne Grove and Goodrich will all go in then as well.

I suggest anyone who is dismayed with the way the council are handling this registers at https://www.onedulwich.uk so we can approach this as one community.

Interesting to read on that site that the reason the council are using the emergency orders and trying to spin this as a response to Covid is because they have been told by TFL that the Healthy Streets initiative can no longer be funded due to the financial challenges TFL now has due to the deal they had to strike with the Tories to get emergency funding - so this is a desperate last ditch attempt to railroad their plans through.

[first mate]

Does the council state exactly what these road closures are meant to achieve? It could be that independent measuring of outcomes against objectives will be necessary to hold them to account. Clearly the council and its supporters cannot be trusted on evidence and will lie and fabricate when it suits them.

[Spartacus]

I Wouldn't want to be a councillor come the next election if this is the way that they treated the people who voted them in.