Woodvale. New road layout

[Wreath-theif]

Hi,

Can anyone advise if there is a place on line where the plans for the new road lay out on Wood Vale can be seen?

Apparently the project is shared between Southwark and Lewisham as the road spans both boroughs.

Have searched on line but cannot find a link anywhere.

Thanks in advance.

[Burbage]

The drawings that were consulted on are at:

https://consultations.southwark.gov.uk/environment-leisure/wood-vale/

The consultation summary report, and a sort-of timetable, are at:

https://www.southwark.gov.uk/transport-and-roads/improving-our-streets/live-projects/street-improvements/wood-vale-improvements

[Guest]

Thanks for uploading the drawings.

Replicating what was done on Ivydale Road.

The consequences will be;

i) queuing traffic, more pollution

ii) longer journey times

iii) extended times for bus travel

iv) more opportunities for accidents with vehicles jumping the "priority waiting places" And

v) traffic diverting to Underhill Road and Westwood Park. to get onto the South Circular.

Plus Melford Road is one way to Lordship Lane. Chaos will ensue.....

[malumbu]

Yonks ago I posted about the impact of earlier changes to Wood Vale and Underhill which should be the access to the South Circ. Right turns were no longer allowed ending up in a massive increase in traffic on Honor Oak Road, a farm track with a primary school on it

Nobody on this site cared so I assume that most are only bothered about their own roads.

The proposals may not be great although they could deter unecessary journeys, encourage active travel, car sharing and the like.

Sadly we need leadership from central government including behaviour change re motorists and speed and average speed cameras rather than physical traffic calming.

Not necessarily Tring to pick a fight with those already posting.

[Guest]

Wasn't aware of the plans previously, so this is all somewhat surprising.

Agree with you about leadership from Central Govt, but also their needs to be stronger communication, consultation, engagement, action and leadership from Local Govt, with cross borough and Party working.

While I can appreciate that traffic volumes on Woodvale would ideally want reducing, it is one of several main thoroughfare's from Forest Hill Road to Lordship Lane and the South Circular, with a significant bus connecting route.

As LTN's have shown, when you block/reduce traffic from one road or sets of roads it diverts onto the nearest roads as alternative routes, which was more than adequately demonstrated with the recent closure of both Honor Oak Road and Woodvale simultaneously pushing traffic through the "horniman heights", Langton Rise, Canonbie, Westwood Park making them into 24hr "speed tracks".

Love the description of Honor Oak road as "a farm track with a primary school on it"

No arguments from me, rather the opposite and total agreement.

To add further misery, from 30th August, Brenchley Gardens is to be resurfaced, so expect further traffic congestion, chaos and inconvenience for those living on adjacent roads and just before schools return. The planning of these works could not be at a worse time. If you think back only a few weeks ago, the pavement width extending works caused enough disruption then. Do those in charge have no understanding of the misery they inadvertently cause residents??

And YES, Brenchley Gardens is well past it sell by date for being resurfaced, so while I agree the works need doing the timing could not be worse, given the disruption already experienced earlier. How about some joined up thinking from Highways, but that's wishful thinking..................

[Bic Basher]

With Brenchley Gardens closing this week, it'll only increase traffic onto Honor Oak Park as the Gardens is a useful short cut to get to Brockley and New Cross by car.

I can see Colyton Road and Cheltenham Road being used as an alternative. Colyton especially isn't really suitable for heavy traffic.

[Guest]

Rather than closure, probably temp traffic lights as they previously did when creating the bottle neck slow down points.

[C123]

Thanks for posting the plans.

I can't understand what they are trying to achieve.

Won't everyone driving East to West just turn off Wood Vale at Langton Rise, carry on to Underhill and then enter LL or the S.Circular via Underhill or Melford?

So the net effect is simply diverting traffic from Wood Vale to Underhill and Melford Rd, which are already very busy roads

What am I missing?

[Penguin68]

So the net effect is simply diverting traffic from Wood Vale to Underhill and Melford Rd, which are already very busy roads

What am I missing?

The impact will be that traffic will be diverted from a wealthy Lewisham Road (well, half of Woodvale is) back into Southwark - also quite wealthy, of course, but this looks like a big win for Lewisham councillors over their Southwark colleagues. I sure that will be reflected in the Lewisham ballot box, and Southwark knows that 'anything but Labour' is locally unthinkable - so actually its just Southwark electors who will lose, so no surprises there, then.

There is, of course, absolutely no merit whatsoever in this scheme from the point of view of those who live in the (Southwark) roads or travel through them, but why should Tooley St care? They never have before. And maybe a reverse favour will be owed to them by Lewisham - but don't expect that to benefit anyone in South Southwark.

[Guest]

Whilst traffic may divert onto Underhill which over the past 12-18months has seen increased traffic flows already, the other side of Langton Rise and Westwood Park and the other connecting roads will also see increased traffic flows. Those that lose are local residents, yet again.

[malumbu]

What a strange conspiracy theory Penguin. Perhaps this is Lewisham getting their own back on Southwark after the earlier changes that increased traffic on the Honor Oak Road farm track

Except I am sure that Wood Vale is a road managed by Southwark.

Issue is that most drivers cannot be trusted to drive at a sensible speed in urban areas. There are better ways of controlling speed as per my earlier post.

[Penguin68]

What a strange conspiracy theory Penguin. Perhaps this is Lewisham getting their own back on Southwark after the earlier changes that increased traffic on the Honor Oak Road farm track

Except I am sure that Wood Vale is a road managed by Southwark.

Issue is that most drivers cannot be trusted to drive at a sensible speed in urban areas. There are better ways of controlling speed as per my earlier post.

(1) The East side of Woodvale is in Lewisham, the West in Southwark. (They have refuse collection on different days and with different refuse lorries). Woodvale issues are discussed by both councils/ local councillors, even where one would take the lead (i.e. in the recent resurfacing works) to deliver 'solutions' to mutual benefit.

(2) As the only benefit that I can see is that life in one road is improved at the expense of life in another, a 'theory' as to why pain should be relieved for some and added to for others would have to be a conspiracy - as there is little rationale otherwise. Curiously speeding as an issue has been far more a problem for Underhill (which has a straight run down a hill to encourage fast driving) than for the relatively flat Woodvale - indeed the Underhill speed humps were installed after a number of accidents, one involving a young child, long before speed humps became more generally common in ED.

[Siduhe]

The road part of Wood Vale is definitely managed by Southwark. I have been on a one woman mission to get the crossing points on Wood Vale reopened after Conway did all the pavement work in March/April and put up barriers across them, but didn't remove the barriers when the pavement works finished. Various residents moved the barriers aside assuming this was an oversight, but they mysteriously kept being replaced.

After god knows how many enquiries and Fix My Street complaints, finally got to the bottom of the issue. The new crossing points were installed in anticipation of the road being immediately resurfaced. Southwark put the timetable back for resurfacing to end 2022, and H&S at Southwark determined that the crossing points weren't safe to use until the road was resurfaced - due to the height difference between the pavement and (un-resurfaced road). I suggested maybe, just maybe, they could put some temporary tarmac ramps to bridge the gap between road and pavement and let everyone use the crossings until the road was resurfaced - which didn't appear to have occurred to anyone as a solution. Of course, as soon as they did that and opened the crossings, Southwark managed to bring the resurfacing and other works forward to August.

As part of all that, Lewisham confirmed they didn't have responsibility for decisions relating to the road and crossings which was the main point of this email. Thank you for listening to my rant though... ;-)

[Penguin68]

As part of all that, Lewisham confirmed they didn't have responsibility for decisions relating to the road and crossings which was the main point of this email.

 

That will be by agreement (clearly, only one commissioning authority will be letting road contracts for a specific road - and probably Lewisham will 'run' work on other boundary roads on behalf of two authorities elsewhere). But decisions about traffic flows etc. will be shared, as otherwise Lewisham (in this instance) would cease to be representing the best interests of their electors. I suspect that what the message you got meant was that Lewisham took no responsibility for the actual progress of the works, which were let by Southwark to their favoured contractor.

[Guest]

The contractors have worked swiftly to resurface Brenchley Gardens from the Forest Hill Road end, so well done guys.

[ruffers]

Just to point out the speed bumps or cushions or whatever they're called which have been installed are so smooth as to be pointless.

[malumbu]

Had a rare drive yesterday. My friends on other threads know that my main form of transport is pushbike. On my scientific study of one sample I'm struggling to understand what the fuss is about

[Penguin68]

I think they've just resurfaced the road (and it seems OK, with very gentle 'humps') - the proposed build-outs don't appear to have been made yet. Or I've misunderstood what the plan was about. Certainly in the section north of Melford it's absolutely fine.

[ruffers]

The extra stuff is between Melford and the South Circular. No change the other way.