Proposal Lordship Lane walkability

[Pugwash]

Yes.  Buses were stopping 3- 4 feet away from the pavement (also happens nowadays due to parking)  on one occasion, people waiting at the bus stop had to assist me 

[first mate]

At the last ED CPZ consultation, there were concerns that any CPZ would negatively impact local shops and their trade by removing parking for shoppers in cars (a point that was raised by businesses in LL, if I remember). The Council response was that there would be more paid for parking on LL to make up for this, as well as paid for spaces on residential streets adjacent to LL. If parking is decreased on LL it is likely to increase on residential side streets, especially where parking is free. 

I don't think we are anywhere near a tipping point that all those shoppers in cars will suddenly switch to buses or bikes.

[march46]

There is no bus stop on the side where the pavement was temporarily widened during COVID.

[Rockets]

2 hours ago, first mate said:

At the last ED CPZ consultation, there were concerns that any CPZ would negatively impact local shops and their trade by removing parking for shoppers in cars

And the last council survey it undertook suggested that, if I remember correctly, 22% of all shoppers had driven to use Lordship Lane and the vast majority from postcodes not bordering SE22 and that the council considered it a destination shopping area.

Let's also be very frank and pragmatic - in many of the areas people are saying need widening the pavement is very wide it's just that shop frontages and displays have encroached a long way out creating a narrowing effect and yes, sometimes you have to wait at weekends to let people pass but it's not the end of the world. As someone who can often be found sampling a tipple or two at Cave du Bruno or an ice-cream sat out Oddono's I am all for shop frontage creep!

I think the removal of car parking spaces would be nothing more than a council CPZ creation programme and I would like to hope a more pragmatic approach is taken and we can see better lighting on Lordship Lane around the shops as it is very dark in places, there still needs to be some sort of crossing at EDG and LL and just better paving would help anyone - those would be my priorities and they would come way before removing parking spaces. BTW given Cllr McAsh has been one of the councillors responsible for Lordship Lane and given his free-spending on other projects in his cabinet role why has Lordship Lane been allowed to fall into such a neglectful state - it's a bit, well, shoddy and tired now?

 

[Moovart]

45 minutes ago, Rockets said:

 

Let's also be very frank and pragmatic - in many of the areas people are saying need widening the pavement is very wide it's just that shop frontages and displays have encroached a long way out creating a narrowing effect and yes, sometimes you have to wait at weekends to let people pass but it's not the end of the world. As someone who can often be found sampling a tipple or two at Cave du Bruno or an ice-cream sat out Oddono's I am all for shop frontage creep!

 

I believe those particular shop frontages belong to the freeholders rather than to the council and that the council's bit of the pavement is the narrow uneven bit with the massive trees planted in it.

[first mate]

@Rockets "I think the removal of car parking spaces would be nothing more than a council CPZ creation programme and I would like to hope a more pragmatic approach is taken".

I agree, especially as we know the Council really want to CPZ the whole of Southwark, if they can.

Their approach seems so contradictory at times, which of itself does not invite confidence.

Their incredible level of concern for the environment in regard to street interventions, looks bizarre when set against what they are quite happy to impose onto Peckham Rye- it makes no sense.

In the ED Consultation results document, the Council state that CPZ are being imposed on certain streets to reduce parking pressure but then note that this will likely create parking pressure on adjacent streets...again this makes no sense. In reality the intervention does not solve parking pressure it simply moves the problem to another street.

 

 

[Earl Aelfheah]

45 minutes ago, first mate said:

"I think the removal of car parking spaces would be nothing more than a council CPZ creation programme and I would like to hope a more pragmatic approach is taken".

What's the more 'pragmatic' approach to widening pavements? I assume it's just not widening pavements. 

[first mate]

I don't think that's what was meant, Earl and I also think you know that. The pragmatic approach referred to other street interventions which were identified in the OP.

[Earl Aelfheah]

2 hours ago, first mate said:

I don't think that's what was meant, Earl and I also think you know that. The pragmatic approach referred to other street interventions which were identified in the OP.

I don't. I thought the OP suggested removing some parking to widen pavements?

Perhaps you could just explain what you are proposing, instead of assuming I know what it is?

Edited November 13, 2025 by Earl Aelfheah

[malumbu]

I'd do a trial closing LL one Saturday a month to traffic.  It's not beyond our imagination to do this, and find an appropriate route round this for buses and essential vehicles.

[CPR Dave]

what is that route Malumbu? Barry Road? 

and then Forest Hill Road and East Dulwich Road? I hope you're not otherwise thinking that traffic from these main roads should be diverted down residential side streets.

[Earl Aelfheah]

20 hours ago, Rockets said:

And the last council survey it undertook suggested that, if I remember correctly, 22% of all shoppers had driven to use Lordship Lane and the vast majority from postcodes not bordering SE22 and that the council considered it a destination shopping area.

This is missing some important context. Firstly the survey is a decade old. Secondly, 56% of people surveyed described themselves as living locally, and 90% as 'local' by virtue of where they lived or worked. So it seems likely the 22% you describe drive to SE22 for work and then use the local shops when they're in the area. Very few, if any, are specifically driving to, and parking on, Lordship Lane for the shops. In the survey LL was very much described as a local shopping area, not a destination shopping area.

Edited November 13, 2025 by Earl Aelfheah

[tiddles]

No no no - do not remove short term parking - most of those cars are driven by people visiting the shops. Reduce that and you will reduce foot fall. 

[first mate]

1 hour ago, Earl Aelfheah said:

I don't. I thought the OP suggested removing some parking to widen pavements?

Perhaps you could just explain what you are proposing, instead of assuming I know what it is?

Earl, in my last post I quoted Rockets, it was he who said he hoped the council instead of making widening pavements a priority intervention, would take a more pragmatic approach, like fixing lighting, fixing pavement surfaces.

I guess in the above you thought by OP I was referring to the original poster? I meant 'other poster'. I hope that clarifies?

41 minutes ago, Earl Aelfheah said:

Very few, if any, are specifically driving to, and parking on, Lordship Lane for the shops.

 

Well, if that is the case, why did the Council seek to reassure businesses by saying it would ensure paid for parking spaces for shoppers in cars along Lordship Lane, and additionally create more paid for spaces on residential streets adjacent to Lordship Lane, qualifying this by stating the Council had to balance the needs of shoppers in cars against those of residents?

[Rockets]

1 hour ago, Earl Aelfheah said:

So it seems likely the 22% you describe drive to SE22 for work and then use the local shops when they're in the area.

What in the report (that was based on a survey done on a Tuesday and a Saturday - that concluded footfall is far busier on a Saturday) suggests that conclusion?

1 hour ago, Earl Aelfheah said:

In the survey LL was very much described as a local shopping area, not a destination shopping area.

It states it draws people from a wider than average area and it does also say, doesn't it, that....."The fact that the variety of stores is rated more positively (and by quite a margin) than the convenience indicates that this is drawing shoppers strongly, which is a phenomenon not noted in many other Southwark high streets which seem to be visited "because it is there". Also worth noting that a far higher % of respondents noted ease of parking as one of the draws of Lordships Lane and this was noted in the report that it was more than twice the average of elsewhere.

2 hours ago, malumbu said:

I'd do a trial closing LL one Saturday a month to traffic.  It's not beyond our imagination to do this, and find an appropriate route round this for buses and essential vehicles.

Which area of transport are you an expert in again @malumbu? I am no expert but that doesn't seem like an idea that is entirely credible. Unless, as @CPR Dave suggests you divert everything around to and along Barry Road. Which route do you think would work for buses and essential vehicles if the shopping part of LL was shut?

[malumbu]

Good heavens, what a closed mind you have.  Car free days have been popular across the world for forty years or more.  Just an idea, not developed beyond that.

Yes I expect Barry Road.  That's where buses go when LL is closed I believe.

Do you not recall the fuss when they closed the North side of Trafalger Square.  Now almost everyone loves it.  Oxford Street next.

[first mate]

As ever, I think Mal simply delights in provocation, it's the thrill of the chase.

[Rockets]

Yes I am not sure there are many Southwark traffic management experts suggesting the closure of Lordship Lane - the chaos that would create with buses alone would be awful! It appears an utterly farcical idea born out of ideology rather than pragmatism and, of course, begs the really basic question of how do bus users then get to Lordship Lane - get off at Dulwich library and walk or wait for the bus to divert all the way round to Goose Green, get off there and walk?

[Earl Aelfheah]

15 hours ago, Rockets said:

What in the report (that was based on a survey done on a Tuesday and a Saturday - that concluded footfall is far busier on a Saturday) suggests that conclusion?

This is a non-sequitur. It just suggests that more people visit the shops on the Saturday. It tells you nothing about how many people drive to Lordship Lane specifically for the shops. As I previously pointed out, the responses suggest that 90% of those who reported using the shops (a decade ago), considered themselves 'local', being in the area either because they live or work here.

15 hours ago, Rockets said:

It states it draws people from a wider than average area and it does also say, doesn't it, that....."The fact that the variety of stores is rated more positively (and by quite a margin) than the convenience indicates that this is drawing shoppers strongly

Yes, because they work in the area. The fact that the shops are rated positively doesn't tell you anything, except that people rate the shops positively.

15 hours ago, Rockets said:

Also worth noting that a far higher % of respondents noted ease of parking as one of the draws of Lordships Lane and this was noted in the report that it was more than twice the average of elsewhere.

Yes, 5%. That's quite different from the 22% you were quoting. Probably 5% is a slightly more accurate percentage of those driving to LL and shopping 10 years ago.

I don't doubt that some people drive to LL (and probably more 10 years ago than now), but your suggestion that it was 22% of shoppers is extremely dubious.

Edited November 14, 2025 by Earl Aelfheah

[Rockets]

But where did it say they are driving to work there and then shopping?

22% of the respondents said they had driven.

Look, we know some are trying to use this to lobby for the removal of parking spaces but those spaces (which are growing more limited each time the CPZ creep takes place) are vital to the thriving Lane as we know it now.

Please, drop the parking bone and go pick up another - there are far more pressing needs for Goose Green end of Lordship Lane if the council were to spend any more on it....move it to Dulwich Village and millions would have been spent by now! 😉

[Earl Aelfheah]

10 hours ago, Rockets said:

But where did it say they are driving to work there and then shopping?

22% of the respondents said they had driven.

22% said they had driven to the area. 90% said they were in the area because they lived or worked here. So the conclusion that 22% we’re driving ‘to the shops’ is highly dubious. A liberal estimate might be 10% (those shopping on the lane who didn’t live or work locally), but it’s highly likely some of those would have arrived by bus or other means. 5% talked about ease of parking being something that attracted them, so probably that’s more suggestive of the numbers who used to drive for the shops a decade ago. 

I suspect it may have been, and certainly is now, less than 5%. I also think repurposing half a dozen car spaces to create more room for pedestrians would encourage more shoppers than it would discourage, especially if it also made it easier to arrive by bus.

10 hours ago, Rockets said:

but those spaces…are vital to the thriving Lane as we know it now.

No evidence of this. In terms of a thriving lane, I would say pavements which people can navigate and remain passable, and faster buses, are more important than half a dozen parked cars (that rarely move).

Edited November 14, 2025 by Earl Aelfheah

[malumbu]

2 hours ago, first mate said:

As ever, I think Mal simply delights in provocation, it's the thrill of the chase.

The above was a factual comment.  He has dismissed every initiative and proposal for reducing vehicles, improving road safety and on my speculative suggestion, the shopping experience.

And what on earth is the laughing emoji for?  I'm not telling a joke.

What do you think, in principle (forget the bus routes and parking) of having Lordship Lane full of pedestrians on the odd occasion?  You know, like when they do this for street parties.

[first mate]

1 hour ago, Earl Aelfheah said:

5% talked about ease of parking being something that attracted them, so probably that’s more suggestive of the numbers who used to drive for the shops a decade ago. 

But in the very recent ED CPZ consultation The Council made a point that it felt it necessary to balance the needs of residents against those of shoppers in cars and so planned on creating new paid for parking spaces on residential streets off LL as well as on the Lane itself. Why would it make such a central point if only serving a small number of shoppers?

 

[Penguin68]

And another thread is hijacked by the anti car brigade... To be fair, it was started by a sympathiser. 

[Earl Aelfheah]

The thread is literally about improving walkability and the opening post suggests widening pavements by removing some parking. The suggestion that discussing the topic is hijacking the thread is very odd indeed.

Rockets dubious claim that 22% of shoppers on Lordship Lane drive there, is based on a typically biased (mis)interpretation of a 10 year old survey, so not unreasonable to provide the relevant context for those who haven’t read it themselves.

Nothing anti car going on here btw. You could improve traffic flow on the lane considerably by removing half a dozen parking spaces, and making the bus lane 24/7. But the thread is about how to improve the shopping environment for pedestrians, along what is primarily a local shopping street.

Edited November 14, 2025 by Earl Aelfheah