The simultaneous closures of Coulsdon Road for drainage works and Stites Hill Road for “traffic management” reasons, due to begin next week and last for a month, creating an “Iron Curtain” between south London and Surrey, are all a matter for Croydon Council.
Siege mentality: the people of Old Coulsdon feel they are being cut off
That’s according to a dismissive response from Surrey County Council, who are responsible for the roads on the other side of the borough boundary in Caterham, and who bellyached plenty about the disruption caused to their residents the last time Croydon tried to fix localised flooding issues near Coulsdon Common.
Inside Croydon reported earlier this week how Coulsdon residents are very concerned about the impact of closing both roads at the same time. The road closures are due to begin on July 25, and will also include Fox Lane and The Grove.
Residents associations claim that Old Coulsdon will be cut off, with some residents facing detours of up to 10 miles just to make a local journey. Others warn that fire engines and ambulances will be unable to reach emergency call-outs in the area.
This week, in response to pleadings from Croydon residents for Surrey County Council to intervene, Kevin Orledge, the “technical support team lead” in their highways department (they call it their “Highways and Transport Service”), wrote: “Whilst we are aware of these potential closures, the roads come under the control of the London Borough of Croydon.
“May I respectfully suggest that you contact them in this instance with your concerns.”
Yeah. “Respectfully” when meaning the exact opposite.
“So it’s all down to Mayor Perry,” one Coulsdon resident association member told Inside Croydon this morning. “He could do something to stop this.
“Is he listening?”
One enterprising resident has compiled a listing of the roads – mostly narrow country lanes – that are likely to feel the brunt of all the diverted traffic when Croydon’s road closures take effect.
Don’t bank on it: a double-decker trying to use Rook Lane can only pass on-coming traffic by going off the road
The list includes:
DEAN LANE: a narrow country road where traffic often has to wait to pass oncoming traffic.
B2031 ROOK LANE: a narrow country road, where buses can hardly pass at places. They have compiled a series of photos to illustrate the point. In one picture, the bus has actually had to go off-road and up a bank to allow other vehicles to pass. Extraordinarily, this is part of Croydon Council’s official diversion route.
“You can see the oncoming bus with door mirrors too wide to fit in half the road – it stopped to allow our bus to crawl past while mounting the bank,” the resident notes.
“We really do not want lots of extra traffic diverted that way. We certainly do not want large HGVs going this way.”
DITCHES LANE: another very narrow country road where traffic has trouble passing oncoming traffic.
OLD LODGE LANE: a very narrow country road where traffic has trouble passing oncoming traffic.
And the notes circulating among concerned Coulsdon residents state: “Stites Hill Road is just over half a mile long.
“The lengths of narrow country lane on the alternatives above are at least a mile – at least two miles on Rook Road – Dean Lane.
“It is clearly much better to have traffic using Stites Hill Road, rather than forcing traffic to use the above routes – which are less suitable for traffic than Stites Hill Road.”
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
FREE ADS: Paid-up subscribers to Inside Croydon qualify for a free ad for their business, residents’ association or community group, just one of the benefits of being part of our online community. For more information about being an iC subscriber, click here for our Patreon page
PAID ADS: To advertise your services or products to our near 10,000 weekday visitors to the site, which is featured on Google News Showcase and followed by 16,000 on Twitter/X, email us inside.croydon@btinternet.com for our unbeatable ad rates
- If you have a news story about life in or around Croydon, or want to publicise your residents’ association or business, or if you have a local event to promote, please email us with full details at inside.croydon@btinternet.com
As featured on Google News Showcase
- Our comments section on every report provides all readers with an immediate “right of reply” on all our content. Our comments policy can be read by clicking here
Inside Croydon is a member of the Independent Community News Network
- Inside Croydon works together with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, as well as BBC London News and ITV London
ROTTEN BOROUGH AWARDS: In January 2024, Croydon was named among the country’s rottenest boroughs for a SEVENTH successive year in the annual round-up of civic cock-ups in Private Eye magazine
As both Coulsdon Road and Stites Hill Road are in the London Borough of Croydon, Kevin Orledge is quite right to point residents in the direction of, er, Croydon council.
The local councillors are Margaret Bird and Nikhil Sherine Thampi, while the “local” MP is Chris Philp. Why aren’t they leaning on our part-time Mayor to do something?
It’s not as if he’s overworked and underpaid, or without a team of highly paid Cabinet Members to help out.
And following the General Election, his Cabinet Member for Streets and Environment, Councillor Scott Roche, is unemployed. That is, apart from the nearly £40k a year we pay him to act as Andrew Ridgely to Perry’s George Michael: good for grinning at cameras but tone deaf and useless.
The Tories only pretend to listen and care when they want your vote