A second large area in the north of the borough could get a 20mph zone on its residential roads, as the council begins a consultation tomorrow asking residents if they agree to extending the speed restrictions into South Norwood, Selhurst and Addiscombe.
According to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, introducing 20mph limits reduces vehicle speeds and cuts the risk of being injured in an accident. Other London councils, including Islington and Southwark, have already introduced borough-wide 20mph schemes.
“Croydon had more than 1,000 road casualties in 2014, which underlines why our 20mph plans are important and will make our borough safer for everyone if enough people come forward to support them,” said Councillor Kathy Bee, cabinet member for transport and the environment.
Bee, or at least a small part of her (the video has been shot with only the councillor’s head visible), appears in a comically poor council video which unwittingly illustrates how busy some of the borough’s streets have become with fast-travelling traffic. As the councillor tries to deliver her unlearned and under-rehearsed 40-second script (note the frequent distracted glances to her cue cards), she has to struggle for her message to be picked up by the microphone over the noise of the passing vehicles.
This is the map, provided by the council, of the area of the second 20mph consultation
The council is to begin delivering thousands of leaflets and publish a survey online about the proposals, which will affect residential streets in Ashburton, Woodside, Shirley, Heathfield and Fairfield wards, as well as Addiscombe and parts of Selhurst and South Norwood.
The 20mph restrictions will not apply to A roads, the major through-routes in the borough.
Residents, businesses and local groups – and Coulsdon-based Peter Morgan under his various online false identities – will have until May 20 to give their feedback online. The deadline for paper copies received by post is May 23.
If there is enough public support for introducing 20mph limits across this area, the proposal will go to a formal consultation. The council’s traffic management committee would then make final recommendations.
Once in place, the council would monitor traffic speeds within the 20mph roads. If speeding remains an issue, options could include police enforcement and other traffic calming measures.
Information on the proposal will be available at www.croydon.gov.uk/20mph. The link to the online questionnaire for giving feedback can also be accessed from the same page.
And look out for those “Say No to 20mph” stickers, which are sure to be plastered (illegally) around the proposal area. Inside Croydon is offering a modest reward for photographic evidence which unveils the identity of the secretive anti-20mph zone fly-posters.
Despite all evidence which demonstrates that 20mph zones save lives, Morgan – who works closely with the local Tories – remains implacably opposed, even claiming such speed limits are in some way in breach of his human rights.
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I’ve noticed a lot of people deliberately walk into the road when a car is coming to show attitude. I wonder how many of the 1000 incidents are not car drivers fault. I hate driving past a croydon school during the morning.
Also why is there such a mass of students criss crossing the borough. Can’t schools be built nearer to the population that actually needs them.
Does it not occur to “sandilands02” that many school students, sat on the buses, resent being stuck in traffic jams composed almost entirely of cars with a single person in them.
If sandilands02 got out of their car and used public transport then students with attitude wouldn’t be an issue.
The issue of thousands of young people crossing the borough to & from school is because the schools are in the wrong places for today’s population. The average family hasn’t been able to afford one of the 1960’s & 70’s “family homes” for many years and so they live where they can. The school entry system means that no longer do children go to primary & secondary schools within walking distance of their homes. They commute across and in & out of the borough. I recall a statistic that 30,000 children cross Croydon’s borough boundaries every day.
There are significant problems for the council in finding sites to build schools where the students live. Perhaps the answer is build affordable social housing near schools and encourage parents to move there. However the residents in the areas adjacent to the state and private schools are amazingly resistant to the construction of affordable homes in their areas.
Presumably “sandilands02” lives somewhere near Sandilands, and chose to live there, right in between Shirley Oasis, Shirley High, Coloma, Royal Russell, Trinity, and Archbishop Tennison schools. Naturally they will encounter secondary students regularly and as teenagers haven’t changed much in the last 5 decades, I imagine that their behaviour is preditable. Perhaps “sandilands” should move somewhere else.
We do not live in central London, a car is a necessity for many living in Outer London. Build a bridge and get over it. Personally i work in Kent, the car is the only option for me. I’m fully aware of the amazing transport options available to me and the envy of all my friends who live further out.
I had no idea over 30,000 students commute across Croydon. I heard they are building new free schools/ academies so hopefully that will help more families live closer to schools.
There is so little land available where the demand for schools is concentrated that there is not option but for the council to look to build schools in less densely populated areas, and areas where there will be little local opposition.
In the ideal world Croydon would have a uniform population density across the borough with an even mix of private and social housing with good quality state schools that local children go to.
The reality is that the people who live in low density areas don’t want any social housing or medium density developments built near them, and the Local Plan was developed under the Tories to ensure it wont happen. So the new housing is jammed into the centre and the north. (I have estimated that once the Menta-redrow & other developments are completed that there will be something like a 25 times higher density of population in the centre than in the outer areas, like Purley and Coulsdon, and through council tax they will generate vast amounts of income for the borough.)
The other issue is that we don’t have local secondary schools as might have existed in the past. At 10 years old our children start sitting a succession of entrance exams in an attempt to get in the best state or private schools. For boys it;s Wilsons, Wallington, Sutton Grammar, Langley, Riddlesdown, Shirley High, the various Harris / Ark / Oasis academies and Whitgift, Trinity etc if you’ve got the money. None of these are schools that are primarily serving a local catchment.The consequence of this is that from 11 years our children are travelling across the borough to get to school, and be punished if they are late.
It’s a mess that doesn’t foster strong communities.
Bringing in the 20mph limit in the residential areas will hopefully persuade many drivers to stick to the main thoroughfares. The issue will probably be enforcement as it will take speed cameras and strict policy of application to get some drivers to conform.
After years of calling for action on residential roads, I have to say that the current administration seems to be doing something on a very limited budget and officers appears to be far more sympathetic to inner Croydon residents experience.
The change on Lebanon Rd from two way to one way has had a dramatic impact, reducing the volume of traffic and oddly reducing the number of parked cars. I am aware that some of the northbound traffic has been diverted onto Addiscombe Ct Rd and I hope that the 20mph limit is introduced there first as a measure to improve their lives.