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 Tuesday at 15:13 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 Tuesday at 19:31 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 14 hours ago by Earl Aelfheah

[first mate]

You have not yet told us which statements in the summary you have labelled as fake (in the Ryedale thread) are untrue. 
 

[Earl Aelfheah]

24 minutes ago, first mate said:

You have not yet told us which statements in the summary you have labelled as fake (in the Ryedale thread) are untrue. 

It's not a summary. Are you suggesting that Lebanums is telling the truth when he says he used the prompt 'scan it and give me a synopsis?' to produced a detailed seven-point governance risk critique? Or are you saying you don't care that it's not the truth?

I've told you my view on the information in the FOI - engaging with the full content, not a fake 'summary'.

 

Edited 12 hours ago by Earl Aelfheah

[Earl Aelfheah]

@first mate Here’s the problem: it’s absurd when someone publishes something that claims to be an objective summary of an FOI when it plainly isn’t, for you to then insist that people respond to that summary rather than the FOI itself. If that distinction isn’t obvious, then we really have jumped the shark.

Please don’t talk about things feeling trumpian whilst being complicit in such obviously bad faith / dishonest tactics.

Edited 10 hours ago by Earl Aelfheah

[first mate]

@Earl Aelfheah Show us the bits in that summary that are untrue, but do it on the Ryedale thread, just so this one is not taken further off subject.

reposting James Barber, to get thread back on track.

22 hours ago, James Barber said:

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. 

 

 

[Earl Aelfheah]

Embarrassing 

Talk about Trumpian

[Spartacus]

Blimey you two, stop bickering over who is Trump and who is Melania.

All this "foreplay" between you is just distracting from the real issue.

Let's get back to debating the scheme, merits and issues and if you want to jibe at each other I am sure the best western in Peckham can provide you a room! 

 

[malumbu]

6 hours ago, Rockets said:

@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!

Surely he can defend himself?  

@Rockets why don't you do something useful and have a look at the cycle training video.  I'd appreciate your views and this would be good use of your time.

[Spartacus]

4 minutes ago, malumbu said:

Surely he can defend himself?  

@Rockets why don't you do something useful and have a look at the cycle training video.  I'd appreciate your views and this would be good use of your time.

And JD Vance just joined the discussion 😅

The cycling video was a different thread and has funk all to do with the gyratory 

Keep on track 

[malumbu]

@Spartacus I comment on something James Barbour said, and Rockets butts in.  I tell Rockets to Butt out and then you butt in.  Who will be next?  Do you have any views on the cycle training video?  

[Spartacus]

29 minutes ago, malumbu said:

@Spartacus I comment on something James Barbour said, and Rockets butts in.  I tell Rockets to Butt out and then you butt in.  Who will be next?  Do you have any views on the cycle training video?  

This thread is about thw gyratory proposal not cycling training 

Maybe ask that question of Rocks in the thread it is posted in rather than derailing this one.

James, like any poster on here, is entitled to an opinion however you "butted" in on his comments so maybe you should consider why you see others as butting in on yours 🤔

 

 

[malumbu]

On 03/02/2026 at 18:28, James Barber said:

 

 

 

Sorry wasn't able to delete my quote.

 

Anyway the line I was trying to refer to was the one about stressed drivers being dangerous.  I've lived in London for decades and before that visited family.  There has always been congestion, and thus from what you say 'stressed drivers"

Rather than blaming this on congestion, and as we can't rid this from London unless we build far more roads, get rid of all restrictions etc, we should be looking at driver behaviour.  Anyone who has done a speed awareness course, something that I was engaged in rather obliquely, will appreciate the advice on how to not be stressed.  

Back to my continual point that for the last 60 years there as a nation we have been too pro-driver and there needs to be a reset.  If any party is brave enough to do this.  I sense Lib Dems possibly and Greens more likely.  Maybe another chance LDs after blowing the last one as a centre left coalition following the next GE.

[rollflick]

Getting back to the pros and cons of the actual scheme, yes the council has made some improvements like pedestrianising the road outside the Nag's Head and helpfully they have provided more information.

But it's still a badly thought out scheme with major show stoppers, a bigger rejig is needed to cope with baseline traffic changes, let alone Southwark's ambitions for more people to move from driving to healthy travel. And compared to what other boroughs (let alone other European countries) are doing, it's a massively missed opportunity to transform the public realm of what is currently a big traffic island. That would genuinely help businesses and increase footfall.

Some of the measures in the scheme are worth progressing now (northbound bus lane, Nag's Head pedestrianisation, zebra by Kinsale Road, trial the bus gate on the eastern side). But there are major issues with the proposals and its underlying modelling including:

(1) TfL is about to massively rationalise bus services in inner London, so lots of the justification could be about to disappear with route changes. The scheme mainly benefits the 78 & P12 by moving them to the (already uncongested) eastern side, but that could happen without the scheme. And many bus services would take up to 50s longer. So the measures seem weak as a bus priority scheme

(2) The modelling fails to mention cycling at all, even though it's growing hugely year-on-year. Maybe because officials know the scheme does not meet existing official standards, let alone provide space for any cycling growth. 

Especially for cycling, the junctions by Scylla and Nigel Road plus the bike crossing by Phillip Walk seem designed for outer London e.g. hopping on and off pavements & tight right angle turns, not hundreds of cycles an hour at peak times. East-west permeability remains poor for cycling too. Separately buses northbound turning after Scylla Rd in practice would often get stuck before reaching the bus lane, while moving the bus stop from the Tesco past the Nag's Head looks problematic.

A better approach would be to remove the gyratory north of Scylla Road, relocating the bus stands etc. to create a longer northbound bus lane on the eastern side, enabling the western side north of Dewar St to be semi-pedestrianised with more space for tables plus two-way cycling with a track leading to/from Rye Lane. Moving the Scylla Road closure and also the bus gate next to the Angel Oak would also design out conflicting movements as well as create a better public space. This alternative needs a diagram to explain, don't think AI can do this yet.

Sorry but while I agree the E Dulwich Rd junctions are unpleasant, I'm not persuaded by James Barber's point about frustrated drivers leading to more collisions, a lot of the time congestion will keep speeds down. The increased traffic forecast on the badly redesigned Bellenden Road could be an issue though. Interested to hear other views on the proposals.