This photograph is not from yesterday’s incident but illustrates what is typical on a daily basis for parents and children on their way to a primary school in Woodside, where construction work has made it unsafe for pedestrians
A small child was hit by a car on their way to school in Woodside yesterday morning, after being forced to walk in the road because of building works and pavement parking.
The incident occurred at the junction of Longhurst and Stockbury roads, less than 250 yards from the school gates. Nearby is a Brick by Brick building site.
The daily walk to school has become an obstacle course for parents living near one BxB site
Fortunately, the child was not seriously hurt, though understandably frightened and shaken, and council cabinet member Stuart King quickly undertook to look into the road safety issues when alerted.
A concerned resident, who asked not to be identified but who witnessed the incident, told Inside Croydon, “The area where the child was run down, the pavement closures and pavement parking at the Stockbury Road entrance to the estate are because of work being done by Brick by Brick.
“The child is OK and went back to school on the same day. The building works are ongoing.
“They started last year and the pavement parking is people visiting the site, and also by large delivery lorries.
The building site has caused constant disruption to the residential streets nearby
“These new homes are being built on the site of old garages, and that has forced more residents to park in the road on a route children used to be able to walk to school safely.
“Now they have to cross at blind corners and between parked cars.
“Yesterday was a lucky near-miss. But it ought never have been allowed to happen.”
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Paul Scott’s wholly amateurish responses to questions about housing numbers at Croydon’s Cabinet meeting on 27th January demonstrates the extent to which planning in this borough is now off the rails.
For an elected councillor to try and convince the electorate that 15,000 housing units derived from windfall sites is not dissimilar to the 6,000 units actually needed was quite pathetic. Scott’s reference to the difference between a ten year and twenty year target is nonsense as it means the 2018 Croydon Planning Policy was even more misguided than we originally suspected. Pure pantomime, riddled with untruths and steered by Scott’s personal political agenda of a deep seated hatred for the suburbs.
The blunt instrument Scott has concocted to bludgeon through the demolition of detached 4/5 bedroom houses with gardens to build blocks of flats with no gardens is called SPD2. It’s the invitation to any old developer to come into the borough, build blocks of 9 residential units and sell them to young professionals from outside the borough. This is doing absolutely nothing to reduce Croydon’s housing lists and therefore you can pretty much disregard everything Scott is saying.
A FOI to the Health and Safety Executive reveals a 5-fold increase in health and safety issues on building sites in Croydon. Why? Scott has opened the door to every Tom, Dick and Harry to knock down houses and chuck up flats.
The council enforcement officers are run off their feet dealing with problems from these mini-bonanza projects.
We see really dangerous Traffic management on sites, Limited Protecting of the public. Materials storage and waste management is always dire. Most sites have no welfare facilities, unsecured site boundaries, demolition being carried out by cut-price unlicensed sub-contractors, severing of power and water services due to inadequate site investigations, open unsecured excavations, the list goes on.
This another example of the damage Paul Scott’s SPD2 is already inflicting on the streets of this borough.
Why is Paul Scott still on the Planning Committee?
It looks to me like the Main Contractor hasn’t fully complied with their Construction Logistics Plan that has been approved as part of the planning conditions, and this should therefore be brought to the attention of Croydon Planning Department.
A quick trawl through the approved plan indicates that the Main Contractor has made no provision for operatives to park any vehicles on site, and doesn’t consider it sufficiently important to detail where they might park if they do drive to site, rather than use public transport!
The logistics plan (CLP/Feb18/V1) includes:
Page 16: “Parking will not be provided for operatives on site. Operatives are strongly encouraged to travel to and from site using public transport”.
Page 25: “Generally all deliveries are to be expected MON‐FRI only between the hours of 09.00am and 3.00pm (to avoid conflict with school opening/ closing times)”.
Page 26: “All vehicles ……….. on leaving the site they will also be banked to the site exit insuring (sic) all vehicles leaves (sic) the site in an orderly and safe manner”.
The Access and Logistics Plan Phase 2 drawing reference 43597/5501/020 (submitted as part of the information to discharge the planning condition) shows that a Banksman should be deployed on the eastern side of the entrance to Malling Close and Stockbury Road – this is the location in front of the Mattisons Lorry in the photo above!
The Council’s own Notice of Conditions Discharge 18/02691/DISC states:
Condition 13 – Construction Logistics – Approved
“The approval of these details assumes that they are implemented on site in accordance with the submitted information”.
Obviously they aren’t – it’s an accident waiting to happen.
Over to you Croydon Planning Enforcement.