Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Rise in number of Lorries and other heavy vehicles ignoring the 7.5t weight limit on Ladder roads
I live in Lausanne Road and have noticed a dramatic increase in the number of lorries, concrete trucks and other large vehicles using our road and the nearby roads- particularly Hampden Road.
This is really making me worry - it's a fact of life that people in cars will use the ladder roads as a cut through, but the heavy vehicles are making quite an impact on my personal quality of life, and I'm sure many other local residents as well.
The specific problems with Heavy vehicles using my and other ladder roads(I'm not sure how many others have weight restrictions as well) are:
1. Weight(obviously)- road humps and heavy vehicles are certainly causing the earth to move in our road! Humour aside the impact from loaded trucks hitting the speed humps is so noticeable that it MUST be causing damage to the nearby houses. We have a 3 storey house and it can be felt strongly on all floors, even though we are not directly opposite the road hump. In our road so far as i'm aware the terraces do not have deep foundations but sit on the good old london clay which I hear anecdotally tends to make them more prone to cracking etc from this sort of impact.
2. Noise - the heavy vehicles are particularly noisy - especially skip trucks with their lovely chain percussion. In our road they start coming through in convoy between 6 am and 6.30am.
3. Speed- The trucks also nearly always break the 20 mph speed limit.
4. Damage- Road surfaces are noticeably breaking down. Hampden road seems to gain a new pothole every day and it hardly seems that long ago that it was repaired. There's damage to nearby houses- see point 1, and also , ironically also damage to the signs at the end of the streets indicating that the trucks should not be entering and bollards knocked over/down at the street entrances....
5. Safety - they're huge, and they speed and they're just downright dangerous. Removing small children from a car with a speeding loaded lorry bearing down on you in a narrow road is not fun.
6. Size of the vehicles-. Ok they're big, sometimes very big. and they get stuck sometimes. It is pretty annoying having to wait around to get into your own street because some truck is trying to illegally enter and has got stuck in/on the specially designed narrow street entrance designed to keep them out...
Anyway, I guess everyone gets the picture here.
So what to do?
I've reported the damaged weight restriction sign at the entrance of Hampden Road to the council- reference C58317 for any Hampden road residents or others interested.
I've spent an entertaining 40 minutes calling around Haringey council , who actually have a 'moving vehicle enforcement' department but apparently don't deal with this issue -enforcing other signs yes, but not weight restrictions. So, actually it is the Police Safer Neighbourhoods or Traffic teams who will (hopefully) deal with this.
I spoke to Kate at the above mentioned Police , and she was very helpful and has logged the issue. I've spoken to a few people in person about this and they have also seemed concerned. Perhaps it is more specific to Lausanne/Hampden roads or is the same thing happening elsewhere on the ladder?
I would really like anyone else who has a problem with this to also report to the police on 0208 808 1212 and quote ref: CAD3030/16 May . The police are also interested in details of registration etc of any vehicles which we notice breaking the law in this manner.
Now- a little word. I am not some sort of control freak who imagines that all trucks with from now onwards will be banished from the ladder roads, but this is a volume problem in part and I really really feel that we are on a slippery slope if these restrictions are not enforced. The ladder is the obvious cut through and with building work at Hornsey station (which is where I've seen the concrete trucks come out and go straight down Hampden rd) and New River Village and endless other trucks going east/west particularly to access the industrial park on tottenham lane it doesn't look like it will go away. Not to get too *woo ooo* about it but isn't there also going to be a concrete factory over the other side of the railway sometime soon?
I am around at many different times of the day and evening and feel I'm pretty well placed to make a judgment about whether there are more trucks using my/Hampden rd. It is serious folks... there really is an increase in volume.
I'd love some feedback from others on this as I really can't believe I'd be the only one to have noticed....
Oh , another point on action- Kate at the police has suggested any I/we contact some of the companies involved directly to alert them to the fact that it has been reported to the police and perhaps they might like to have their drivers use alternative(legal) routes to avoid penalties.
The 3 that spring to mind at the moment are:
O'Donovans, Murphys and I'm not sure who to contact specifically but whomever is in charge of the work going on at Hornsey station on the Mosque side.
I've just spent the morning on this, so will have to update later about possible further calls...
*phew*
I'm off for a cuppa I think....
Tags for Forum Posts: 7.5t, Ladder traffic solutions, Lorries on the Ladder, Wightman Road, concrete factory, hampden road, heavy lorries, heavy lorry, hgv, lausanne road, More…
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Adam on
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i would be in favour of 2 way roads with passing places - but this means removing parking places which is politically un-popular!
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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There are three disabled bays in our street that are no longer used. I took pictures of the street when we came back from camping at 11 o'clock after the bank holiday and had to carry two sleeping children from up near the church because we could not get a park closer to our house. Really we only need passing places because too many people insist on driving trucks/suvs around London. One of Hugh's pictures of a ladder road shows an old (50s?) car parked outside its owner's residence (I assumed) and there is just sooo much road left. We make the cars wider now for stability at high speed... ha ha ha... sigh.
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Permalink Reply by GK/OD on
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Theres no real answer to traffic. There`s just to much and more on the way with the new local development on the cards. You can design what you want and have a small effect. Enforcement is the same it only has a small effect....Still you have to keep trying
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Permalink Reply by Alison P on
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I'm with Adam 100% - the humps certainly made a massive difference to the speeds on Seymour Road. They were introduced before the one way system came in and made a huge difference.
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I spoke to one of the drivers this morning. He stopped to ask me directions because I was taking his picture. He wanted the railway sidings opposite Hampden Rd but had been down Lausanne (allegedly Fairfax) and I spoke to him in Raleigh... I told him that it was a restricted road for vehicles his size and he just drove off.
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No I didn't :( I usually have a really good memory for registration numbers but I got distracted. You know... I think that the increase in traffic may be related to the work at Coleridge School in Crouch End and the work at the Hornsey rail yard.
Does anyone know if work has started on the new school at the gas works behind the mall?
So on the bright side... maybe this will all blow over in a couple of years.
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Permalink Reply by matt on
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Without doubt the road humps slowed speeds down massively. It stopped the 50-60mph drag strip racer, although unfortunately some still try this with the road humps and that is really scary.
Trouble is, the road humps have bought new problems; that is very clear. For those affected it is extremely serious. Insurance companies should start suing the council for damage to properties caused by trucks going over road humps.
The solution is HOME ZONES
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whilst i agree with you, the cost of the type of home zone that you have shown is very high (£300,000+) - this DIY Streets pilot project is more likely to become widespread as it is a fraction of the cost and probably as effective. lets get a Ladder Road in the next phase!
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Yes, this is good. Do you mind if we apply for Falkland Rd as it has the school as well?
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Can I dare to suggest that we wait to see if the charter will be taken on board and undertake such a project as part of a broader co-ordinated plan?
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Permalink Reply by StephenBln on
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Matt, only yesterday I was sketching the same sort of idea, after reading about the problems here.
The scheme shown above and also the DIY Streets idea, won't in my opinion, work in Harringay.
In the scheme above, there are only terraced houses on one side of the street, allowing the residents who have gardens in front of their properties to park on the opposite side.
How do you intend to deal with the problem of vehicle ownership in Harringay? I imagine there are far too many cars to allow such a scheme to work. (that's how far I got yesterday). Everyone wants to park outside their house, but although they often imagine that they do, they don't own the road outside their homes.
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