Peckham Rye Gyratory reappears for 2 week consultation: little change, more disruption

[IainJ]

Southwark Council yesterday released the revised scheme for traffic movements around Peckham Rye/East Dulwich Road which was heavily criticised when it first appeared.  The consultation is open for less than 2 weeks, closing on 16 February so you need to be quick with your responses.  It hasn't yet appeared on the 'Southwark Platform' so the Council is obviously hoping that it will go unnoticed so that the scheme can be forced through. 

The major areas of concern, i.e., the closure of the eastern branch of Peckham Rye to the junction with East Dulwich Road and the consequential rerouting of most traffic to the western branch remain. This will cause substantial tailbacks in all directions, in particular slowing the buses. The current scheme was designed to improve the buses through the western junction so this seems a retrograde step. The scheme pays lip service to improving cycling but in practice offers little benefit - with all traffic forced to use the western arm of Peckham Rye there will be more potential conflicts. The Nigel Road bus stop  is to be moved to Rye Lane to secure the much criticised 'floating bus stop'. All of this is said to be costing £2m and will take another year to implement. Yet more contra flows, temporary traffic lights and massive disruption just when we have recovered from the delays caused by the gas works last year. And with more restrictions it will be a huge cash cow for the Council. Not that this is an objective of the scheme.... 

The link to the consultation is here: https://engage.southwark.gov.uk/en-GB/projects/peckham-rye-gyratory-bus-improvements

The Council need to be mindful of the High Court judgement in 2025 which quashed the West Dulwich low traffic zone, where the consultation outcome was described as a 'masterclass in selective reporting'.  

Edited 23 hours ago by IainJ

[alice]

Sounds like they’re just getting rid of an important bus stop at Nigel Road. There’s already another bus stop outside the old Asda around the corner. 

[march46]

Suggest properly reading the detailed documents. My take is they’ve listened very well to concerns raised in the consultation - and made sensible revisions in response. There was a lot of support from residents. 

47 minutes ago, IainJ said:

 It hasn't yet appeared on the 'Southwark Platform' so the Council is obviously hoping that it will go unnoticed so that the scheme can be forced through. 

How did you find out about it?

[malumbu]

48 minutes ago, IainJ said:

The Council need to be mindful of the High Court judgement in 2025 which quashed the West Dulwich low traffic zone, where the consultation outcome was described as a 'masterclass in selective reporting'.  

Nope as some of us discussed for some reason the judge was swayed by a load of bolloxs from some NIMBY's with money and time on their hands.

[Rockets]

1 hour ago, malumbu said:

Nope as some of us discussed for some reason the judge was swayed by a load of bolloxs from some NIMBY's with money and time on their hands.

Are you now questioning whether judges uphold the rule of law and are actually being swayed by "NIMBYs with money and time on their hands?"

@malumbu was it not the judge that summed up by saying it was a "masterclass in selective partial reporting" or is that just spin from biased folks with an agenda.....;-)

 

[first mate]

What with 'fake summaries' and 'nimby judges' it is all beginning to feel a bit Trumpesque.

[James Barber]

This scheme seems fundamentally flawed and likely to lead to crash concentration and worse crash outcomes. 

 If Peckham Rye east is closed to motor vehicles, and the various side road closures, then a lot of extra traffic will be forced onto Peckham Rye west which will slow down the bus routes and cyclists following that route to and from East Dulwich. It is also likely to raise the pressure for motor vehicle drivers at the western Peckham Rye / East Dulwich Road junction. A young girl died at this junction in the past while temporary lights were in place. Stressed motorists are a greater danger and risk for more serious crashes. 

 Looking at Crashmap.co.uk for the area the western junction vs the eastern one, for the last five years public data is available for, shows 8 vs 7 Slight crashes and 1 vs. 0 for Serious crashes on these two junctions. Placing further traffic onto the western junction would likely exacerbate this. 

 BUT if the whole western Peckham rye from East Dulwich Road to Scylla Road junction is compared to the eastern side it becomes 2 serious and 17 slight on the west side vs. 0 serious and 11 slight crashes on the east side.

I can’t see how the scheme would make this better. But intuitively it would seem a real risk to make it much worse. 

[CPR Dave]

Thanks James. A very sensible contribution.

 

Are you planning to stand for election next time round? I hope so. I will vote for you if you do. 

Edited 19 hours ago by CPR Dave

[malumbu]

@James Barber From my casual observation you appear to take a poltical stance, ie that everything Southwark does under Labour control is wrong.

@CPR Dave I doubt if you have posted anything positive on this forum

[Spartacus]

12 hours ago, malumbu said:

@James Barber From my casual observation you appear to take a poltical stance, ie that everything Southwark does under Labour control is wrong.

@CPR Dave I doubt if you have posted anything positive on this forum

Blimey Mal, thats a bit rich even for you 

James, when he was a councillor, helped keep the council in check and under scrutiny

I for one would welcome that level of due diligence again as over the last 4 years they have steamrollered over public opinion.

Has CPR Dave posted anything positive, in your opinion no, but in my opinion neither have you, however it is a public debating platform so everyone's opinion is valid, (sorry not just yours) and we all need to respect each other and have good discussions otherwise it becomes a vocal amplifier for one view or the other and this is not twitter/x where the algorithm feeds and amplifies your own views and strokes your ego.

 

[Rockets]

13 hours ago, malumbu said:

From my casual observation you appear to take a poltical stance, ie that everything Southwark does under Labour control is wrong.

@malumbu that might be because James is a politician and everything Labour does is usually wrong (or at least ill-thought out or listening to the views of one lobby group more than the majority of constituents) 😉

Please run @James Barber - the Labour stranglehold needs to be broken to get some more pragmatism into local politics!

[Spartacus]

With regards the proposed scheme 

Removing paid parking will have an impact on the shops and resturants in the proposed area as it will be harder for "passing" trade to stop quickly and pick things up 

It also makes it harder for disabled drivers as they will have to park in the middle (5 spaces?) And then cross the road to get to the shops 

Currently, with the exception of a short time period in the morning, buses flow fairly freely through the proposed area so is this over engineering the solution? 

Unless i am wrong, the bus gate on Peckham Rye appears to stop cars, vans and taxis going to the gyratory from east dulwich road and from the forest hill / Barry Road direction, does this then impact traffic that needs to go to nunhead from the latter direction as there is no right turn at the lights ? How will this be managed or are cars going to be forced down to turn around at the goose green roundabout ? 

Basically, this is a poor design that will have massive negative impacts across a wider area fixing a problem that doesn't really exist and should be objected to and brought into scrutiny. 

 

 

[Earl Aelfheah]

19 hours ago, first mate said:

What with 'fake summaries'

A transparent untruth you seem to be comfortable defending whilst talking about things feeling 'Trumpian'. Oh dear. 

Edited 1 hour ago by Earl Aelfheah