Following our last meeting with Cllr Ben Coleman and traffic officers from LBHF on 16 Dec we have been gathering our thoughts on how to respond and ultimately proceed.
Understandably, we are frustrated by the lack of positive outcomes in the ongoing meetings. After 6 months of discussion no active steps have yet been taken to help mitigate the traffic situation on WBR or indeed the streets to the West. In fact every one of our suggestions, apart from ‘Street Washing’ have to date been rejected.
Our chief concern now is that all the plans the officers are recommending appear to be ‘sticking-plaster’ solutions. We believe these will only serve to slightly mitigate the current traffic congestion and pollution we have been suffering since August and will not actually improve the long-standing issues on WBR.
LBHF proposal – PDF Presentation
As we have reiterated on numerous occasions we are not against the council’s green initiatives. In fact we applaud them. However, we, the residents and businesses on WBR, want to benefit from them as well, and certainly not suffer worse conditions because of them. Therefore we ask the Council to be more bold in their approach.
The current suggestions from traffic officers to help reduce through-traffic on WBR must provide a significant improvement, not only to the current crisis since Sept/Oct 2020 but from the normal traffic patterns over the last 3-5 years.
Council data indicates that the area to the east of WBR has seen an average 75% reduction in traffic since their scheme was implemented in July. Whilst we acknowledge the WBR is traditionally a busier road it must also benefit from reduced traffic and pollution, below the levels seen in 2017/19. Indeed there is an argument that WBR should have been improved first before any other schemes had been implemented.
Current Council Plans
The current plans from traffic officers are to restrict and control the number of cars entering WBR from each end. To achieve this they suggest creating pinch-points at both ends: by closing the left turn lane on New Kings Road & by doing gutter works just after the bridge reducing access from the bridge to one-lane. They also propose Bus Boarders’ to prevent vehicles overtaking buses at bus stops, Green Screens to help capture pollution particles and street washing.
While we welcome these small steps we do not believe they go far enough to improve the current situation nor will they change the ‘character’ of the road. It will remain a major through-road to HGVs & heavy traffic. This does not align with the green, pedestrian-friendly, cafe-culture road they have suggested. To achieve this the very nature of the road needs to be re-addressed with priority given to residents/retail, not vehicles.
This is why we continue to maintain that partial use of Imperial Road/Townmead Road must be considered; not to increase car capacity, but to actually halve capacity on both WBR and Townmead Road. This would bring benefit to the whole of South Fulham. This suggestion has been rejected by officers time and time again.
Greenest Borough
The Council have indicated they want to be the greenest borough in London and indeed the country. The current TCPR (Traffic, Congestion and Pollution Reduction) Scheme in South Fulham is the first step in a series of long-term plans to implement similar schemes throughout the entire borough over the next 3 years (see image). However, a council cannot install schemes that benefit only some while actively harming others. We believe that as it currently stands the scheme will not achieve the council’s stated aims of modal shift away from car use.
It is essential to continue with our meetings, to administer direct influence on the council and to encourage them to go further.
We believe our best path is always through continued communication. Unfortunately we may be left with no choice but to look at alternative steps if the Council continues to remain unresponsive to other constructive suggestions.
“partial use of Imperial Road/Townmead Rd must be considered”.
If you want the council to listen to you, you must listen and respond to what the council tells you after listening to you. They DID consider this and gave a number of reasons this was not a good idea, none of which you’ve addressed. Capacity, pedestrian safety at Carnwath/Townmead, worse pollution because road narrower and fewer trees etc.
I thought at that presentation it had been agreed that further measures in the west will reduce WBR congestion too and success criteria will be put in place to guarantee this. Any reluctance to accept or even address the facts presented by the council will just hold up this work and make it worse for all involved.
Thanks for your comment. Yes, they did show a presentation with their reasons why our ‘idea’ wouldn’t work. Initially, they ran data for a proposal that was not in fact what we had suggested at all. Once we clarified that we the scheme was to keep Imperial Road Northbound restricted to local traffic as well as WBR Southbound to local, bus and taxi traffic they came back with very much the same presentation disputing this as well. One of our main concerns is that the presentation indicated that there are more people living on Townmead Road than Wandsworth Bridge Road. With only 60 homes actually facing Townmead Rd this data must include all the new build flats on Townmead, many of which do not actually face the road itself. It is also worth noting that these new-build flats have better air filtration systems and double glazed, insulated windows. This ‘skewed’ data does not fill us with confidence that they actually have a proper sense of the area. In one of our meetings Bram Kainth, one of the chief traffic officers, mentioned that one of the contributing factors to congestion on WBR was not only deliveries but the ‘parking spaces’ on the road. As anyone who lives and drives on this road knows, there are in fact no parking spaces on it at all. Again, this suggests they do not in fact understand the area in detail.
As this is an ‘experimental’ scheme, we are simply asking them to ‘experiment’ to relieve some of the intended traffic on Wandsworth Bridge Road. We do not suggest increasing capacity. Whatever measures they intend to use on Wandsworth Bridge Road to limit the number of vehicles can also be used to equally limit the number of vehicles on Townmead / Imperial Rd. This benefits the whole of the area, not just some. We are simply asking for equality.
As well as the houses on Townmead Rd there are also large blocks of flats opposite the Bagley’s Lane and Glenrosa Street bus stops that have almost no separation from the road and no air filtration system.
Hearsay about Bram Kainth’s remarks are not relevant to the contents and conclusion of the revised presentation, especially as they weren’t included.
Whether it’s reasonable or not to ask for “equality” between an wider ‘A’ road designated a Strategic Road with straight ahead access to the bridge and a longer more convoluted route over unclassified roads, including the narrower Townmead Road and multiple sharp right angle turns, including onto the bridge, “Equality” simply isn’t possible; as per the presentation Townmead and the associated junctions can’t carry the southbound through traffic for Wandsworth Bridge currently carried by the WBR.
Your best bet is to back a scheme in the west to reduce the traffic from the west adding to and slowing the WNR traffic. It’s my understanding that the success criteria you requested will be included.
Wandsworth Bridge Road has breached legal air quality limits since records began. It is important for the residents, visitors and businesses of this road that air quality is significantly improved. Unfortunately nothing within the council’s TCPR Scheme will achieve improved air quality on Wandsworth Bridge Road and therefore radical changes such as designating Imperial Road & Townmead as the Southbound through-route are required in order to minimise the risk of adverse health effects to the residents of Wandsworth Bridge Road. Wandsworth Bridge Road required traffic interventions to improve air quality even before this scheme exacerbated the situation, and the residents cannot be expected to accept this situation or see it made even worse again by implementation of another scheme to the West without significant protections for WBR being implemented at the same time.
All of the borough breaches air quality limits, however, in Sands End only Harwood Terrace was in one of the eight or so Air Quality Focus areas in the borough (stretching up Harwood Road).
If you want improved air quality to be included as a success criteria for an extension of the TCPR to the west I’m sure the council would listen as traffic from the west would no longer add to and slow the WBR traffic.
The sort of radical change to enable Imperial/Townmead to carry the southbound traffic of the larger WBR are outlined in the orange or brown alternatives in the old Western Environmental Improvement Route (WEIR) plans:
https://www.roads.org.uk/sites/default/files/ringways/ringway1/w_weir_leaflet.pdf
And even then that was with a new bridge carrying much of the through traffic.
Both the narrowness of Townmead compared with WBR and the inverse square law mean pollution would be worse for Townmead residents than WBR – revision of the inverse square law would indeed be a “radical change”.
When you say all of the borough breached air quality limits I assume you are referring to the entire borough being designated as an air quality management area? This is very different to all of the borough breaching air quality limits which is not true. Designating the entire borough as an AQMA is just a shortcut to fulfilling part of their duties under the Environment Act 1995. However the exceedances on Wandsworth Bridge Road since records began have not been addressed by the council and I imagine something for us to consider Judicial Review of. The schemes are looking to reduce capacity not increase it so your WEIR suggestion is counter productive in this conversation. Imperial Townmead Road as the southbound throughroute would provide a significant reduction in capacity due to the junction at Wandsworth Bridge being limited to 400 cars/hr. this was presented as a problem at the meeting but if we are looking to reduce traffic coming through the area surely that is a success! We must also move away from this ‘A Road’ rationale, Wandsworth Bridge Road is and was a residential road long before it was designated an A Road and that designation was indeed made long before the health effects of pollution were known and cars became ubiquitous.