Southwark Consultation on no entry - Denmark Hill/Champion Hill

[sdrs]

Grove Lane at 8.26am today. Healthier streets, really? Good luck to the people trying to get anywhere on time in those buses.

[nxjen]

Good luck indeed to any people trying to get anywhere on the bus coming towards the camera as it?s Out of Service

[sdrs]

The northbound buses queueing on Grove Lane and Champion Park to access Denmark Hill were, however, very much in service! I recently had to attend a medical appointment at Kings using the 185 and found the journey time had more than doubled since the no entry trial began. Neighbours have reported the same.

[sdrs]

Here is a link to a Southwark Council online consultation form inviting comments on the no entry trial, which apparently went live on 7th February, unbeknownst to local residents, who yet again, were not notified.

https://consultations.southwark.gov.uk/environment-leisure/champion-hill-no-entry-trial-monitoring-form/

This closes on 30th September 2019.

Please take the time to complete this if you?ve experienced or are experiencing increased congestion and pollution, road safety issues, and/ or bus delays etc, as a result of the no entry trial. If the survey will let you, it is worth attaching photographic evidence to illustrate your concerns.

It is becoming clear that the effects of the trial are far-reaching and are being felt as far south as Melbourne Grove and East Dulwich Grove, on the main bus and pedestrian route to East Dulwich secondary schools, as well as on the hill?s pedestrian routes to Goose Green, Dog Kennel Hill School, Lyndhurst School and Denmark Hill station.

[rupert james]

For anyone interested The Southwark News has published information regarding pollution in Southwark.

It appears that Champion Hill did not have problems when the research was undertaken by Friends of the Earth.

What research did Southwark base it action on.

[sdrs]

You?re right, it didn?t. There is no evidence that NO2 levels were above EU limits on Champion Hill - nothing to justify driving them up (quite possibly above EU limits) across the wider, surrounding area as the no entry trial is clearly doing. Even more shocking, the Council which promised comprehensive air quality monitoring for the scheme made no provision for NO2 tubes on the roads that would take the displaced traffic. Under duress and pressure from residents (because these are residential roads!, they have promised to instal some in March but too late for baseline readings.

Here?s a link to that Southwark News article

https://www.southwarknews.co.uk/news/southwark-air-quality-pollution-invisible-killer-revealed/

[Bagpipes]

I honestly cannot understand how Southwark can proceed with this without a proper evidence base - either that Champion Hill needs improvement or surrounding streets, esp Dog Kennel Hill / Grove Lane will not experience harm.

[bels123]

Southwark Council report their own air quality monitoring results. For 2017 there are many more than the 44 sites on the Southwark News report breaching the limit.

https://www.southwark.gov.uk/environment/air-quality/air-quality-data-monitoring-stations

You have to download the spreadsheet. Not sure if any Champion Hill roads included here?

[goldilocks]

From looking at the spreadsheet it seems that the closest monitoring to Champion hill are sited on Camberwell Grove or De Crespigny Park - neither of which are particularly close by or comparable. Surprisingly can't see anything for Dog Kennel Hill School but maybe its listed under a side road?

[James Barber]

I thought this closure was about reducing traffic levels to make it safer to cycle along this section of London Cycle Network route no.23 and walk cycle Safe Routes To School. The E-W section of Champion Hill has narrow pavements, had A road levels of traffic, and no parked car to protect people from drivers.

The air pollution is curious. Focus seems to be on NO2 levels but the research shows PM2.5's and below being the critical health factor with no safe levels.

[sdrs]

The objectives of the scheme are unclear and no evidence for its need has been produced by the Council. If it is about making streets healthier and safer for children walking to school, it is failing in its objectives. It is having the opposite effect. Many more children live on and walk along the roads taking the displaced traffic and are suffering increased pollution in morning rush hour than live on or use Champion Hill. The Pupil Entrance to Dog Kennel Hill School is not on Champion Hill but on Dog Kennel Hill. Ideally both No2 and PM2.5 levels should be monitored but the Council is focusing exclusively on NO2 (cheaper to monitor). The NO2 tube on Champion Hill (where NO2 levels would already have been significantly lower than on Dog Kennel Hill, Grove Lane or Champion Park) is already broken and incredibly, none were planned for Dog Kennel Hill, Grove Lane or Champion Park, despite this constituting a major pedestrian route to three local primary schools and the first two being densely residential. Residents are pressing for these. The scheme is as deeply flawed as the failed Loughborough Junction trial, which was aborted when the Fire Brigade lodged an official complaint about the impact of the congestion it caused on emergency response times and Kings commented on unacceptable (20-30 minute) delays caused to patients and staff and on a perceived increase in pollution in the area around the hospital. Interestingly, another reason for the ending of that trial was its unacceptable impact on the residents of the Loughborough estate - over-use of estate roads. It was fully anticipated by Southwark Council in its planning of this trial that westbound displaced traffic would head south and seek to rejoin Dog Kennel Hill via Bromar and Puthchley Roads, ie via the East Dulwich estate, none of whose residents were consulted.

This consultation is open till September

https://consultations.southwark.gov.uk/environment-leisure/champion-hill-no-entry-trial-monitoring-form/

[Bagpipes]

James Barber Wrote:

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

> I thought this closure was about reducing traffic

> levels to make it safer to cycle along this

> section of London Cycle Network route no.23 and

> walk cycle Safe Routes To School.

With respect, James, that may be the motivation, but policy makers have to be alive to the consequential harm (unintentional or otherwise) that schemes like this cause. And weigh up the pros and cons accordingly. I don't believe for a minute you would put up with - or stay silent about - the huge spike in volume of traffic and pollution that closing Champion Hill causes for residents on surrounding roads if you lived there.

[James Barber]

Hi Bagpipes,

The reasons the experimental TMO is that it takes several months for things to settle back down again. So I think it premature to view the current situation as how things will ultimately settle.

hi sera,

I don't understand your assertions.

Champion Hill E-W section has narrow road lanes and narrow pavements with no cars parked between the pavements and the car lanes. The other roads you've suggested as being more dangerous do have parked car between wider pavements and the wider car lanes. So how is it more dangerous?

Air pollution will reduce from 1 April when the ULEZ rules in the Congestion charing one apply - we'll see less traffic the degree I'm uncertain about but it will be less. Also, it is very early to see the current situation as anything other than a transition until people get used to the change and the numerous road works badly coordinated by the council come to an end.

[AylwardS]

trial period to see how your concerns are affected by differing traffic levels.

Traffic in South London generally has been worse for the last 4-6 weeks and its not always clear why. Last week I walked down a road at a time I?ve been walking down it regularly for the last couple of years and the traffic was worse than I?ve ever seen it. Someone else at the class I was going to had walked down the same road 5 minutes earlier and a bus and car had a minor accident, didn?t pull out of the traffic to swap details and access both ways to the High Street was affected. Given all the roadworks locally - those at Denmark Hill / Camberwell will go on until July - I?m not sure the trial will ever see ?normal? traffic levels.

Not all of the concerns expressed here are just down to the closure, though it may not be helping.

If air quality / pollution is a concern for you this page from TfL might be of interest https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/air-quality-advice?intcmp=41599.

[AylwardS]

Pollution levels are not just down to traffic but there are plenty of posts on here about traffic impacts.

From what I?ve seen and heard traffic in South London generally has been worse for the last 4-6 weeks and its not always clear why. Last week I walked down a road at a time I?ve been walking down it regularly for the last couple of years and the traffic was worse than I?ve ever seen it. Someone else at the class I was going to had walked down the same road 5 minutes earlier and a bus and car had a minor accident, didn?t pull out of the traffic to swap details and access both ways to the High Street was affected. Given all the roadworks locally - those at Denmark Hill / Camberwell will go on until July - I?m not sure the trial will ever see ?normal? traffic levels.

The closure may not be helping but it may not be the closure alone affecting traffic.

If air quality / pollution is a concern for you this page from TfL might be of interest https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/air-quality-advice?intcmp=41599.

[rendelharris]

(Also posted on another thread but may be of interest to those on here)

I had to walk to hospital this morning, so I took some pictures of the traffic situation, bearing in mind that we've been told that the CH closure will lead to massive ratrunning through the DKH estate and that, allegedly, traffic has been gridlocked up Champion Park and down Dog Kennel Hill since the CH closure. Clockwise from top left: Bromar Road, Quorn Road, Ivanhoe Road, Grove Lane, Dog Kennel Hill and Pytchley Road. All pictures taken between 8.05 and 8.20 this morning.

There was a traffic jam along the bottom part of Champion Park, stretching back almost as far as the wolf sculpture; in the twenty-plus years I've lived round here there has always been a traffic jam of that length or longer at rush hour, it's a very busy road with a pelican that turns red every ninety seconds or less and there is a very long red/short green phasing at the lights at the Denmark Hill junction. From the wolf sculpture, cars were taking approximately two minutes to reach Denmark Hill. Of the alleged nightmarish gridlock of which we've heard so much, not a sign.

[Beulah]

^That's not fair - you just waited until there was a convenient break in the gridlock!

[sdrs]

Must have done! Baffled as to why Rendelharris is so intent on dismissing the concerns about the effects of this trial raised by those actually live on the roads taking the displaced traffic, who are experiencing and observing them daily, and by other residents whose kids have to use these roads to walk to school. Coming on the forum to accuse others of making things up is not a good look. It is simply untrue that traffic on Grove Lane is the same as it ever was. I have lived on Grove Lane 22 years and never seen anything like it. ?Allegedly??! The tailbacks in morning rush hour which were once contained on Champion Park now extend all the way down Grove Lane, on a bad morning almost all the way back to Champion Hill. Plenty of photographic evidence of this from multiple sources has been and will continue to be captured and passed on to the Council.

[rendelharris]

sdrs Wrote:

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

The tailbacks in morning rush

> hour which were once contained on Champion Park

> now extend all the way down Grove Lane, on a bad

> morning almost all the way back to Champion Hill.

In that case, how was I able to take the bottom right photograph, showing Grove Lane completely clear, at 8.20 on a Monday morning? How was I able to take photos at the height of rush hour on the roads that are supposedly packed with rat runners showing them completely clear? This isn't a question of saying that's my opinion, or I'm making it up - there's the factual evidence.

I too, funnily enough, observe and experience the situation daily, as I live, walk and cycle in the affected area. My experience is, as supported by photographic evidence, that the situation is nothing like as dire as some are claiming.

[goldilocks]

This morning was strange though - there are still traffic lights on East Dulwich Grove but there was much less queueing traffic this morning than normal - only a few cars by the lights - perhaps I was a little earlier than usual and it doesn't back up until 8:30 but its the first day in weeks it hasn't been queueing back to Melbourne Grove and beyond.

[Beulah]

^Strange isn't it? It's almost as if the closure of Champion Hill (in one direction) isn't responsible for the mass gridlock that we can no longer see...

[spider69]

Beulah Wrote:

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

> ^That's not fair - you just waited until there was

> a convenient break in the gridlock!

Strange. Not one moving car in sight on any road.

[rendelharris]

spider69 Wrote:

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

> Strange. Not one moving car in sight on any road.

Yeah, I must have Photoshopped them out...in fact there were two cars at the top of Ivanhoe and there were two cars and a lorry waiting at the lights at the end of Pytchley - not easy to see as had to compress photos massively to meet the forum requirements. Only really strange if you find reality strange.

[betternowthanthen]

rendelharris

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

Your pics are def taken when breaks in traffic.....how about you compare them to pics taken at 6am? sure they'll look the same. How about you take them at rush hour, oh, don't forget to get ones that actually involve the actual trafffic???!!

Your fooling no one again, by the way, keep it coming, i'm enjoying this...

[rendelharris]

betternowthanthen Wrote:

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

> rendelharris

>

> ------------------

> Your pics are def taken when breaks in

> traffic.....how about you compare them to pics

> taken at 6am? sure they'll look the same. How

> about you take them at rush hour, oh, don't forget

> to get ones that actually involve the actual

> trafffic???!!

>

> Your fooling no one again, by the way, keep it

> coming, i'm enjoying this...

Oh dear. Yes, well done Sherlock, of course they're taken during breaks in the traffic, did I say they proved there was no traffic at all (though for the DKH estate streets, they are a fair representation of how the streets were/are at all times)? The point is, if Grove Lane and Dog Kennel Hill have been suffering "gridlock" due to the CH closure, as some have claimed, how was I able to take photographs at the height of rush hour showing those roads completely empty? Where's the gridlock?

All pictures were taken, as stated, between 8.05 and 8.20 on Monday morning; if you choose not to believe that because the facts don't fit your chosen narrative, I couldn't care less.

ETA Just for you, here's a screenshot of my iPhone with the DKH picture. You will note the time - Monday 08.18.