Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Last chance to object to Hewit Road no right turn proposals
Hi - last post from me on this.
Those of you who've been following this discussion will have seen that the proposed no right turn at the bottom of Hewit Road is not being proposed as a 'trial' and is indeed intended to be a permanent change. This is being done without a risk assessment, and with no clear idea what the impact is going to be on the surrounding area. A number of us have pointed out the obvious risk this poses to children to-ing and fro-ing from the two schools and children's centre on Pemberton Road - and the Council have finally admitted that they know there will be an increase to traffic on Pemberton Road, yet are still pressing ahead.
If you feel strongly about this - then do take the time to make your feelings known. Previous experience has shown that if a significant number of objections are received - the council will take notice, as was the case the last time there was a proposed change to the area which clearly would have funnelled traffic past the schools and children's centre.
So - if you want to object, then do so today/tomorrow.. you can do so by emailing traffic.orders@haringey.gov.uk quoting “Objection - Hewit Road No right turn” in the subject line. Deadline for comments is Friday 8th November.
Cheers,
Paul
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Andrew Stillman on
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how strange, paul, you seem to have overlooked what haringey council wrote to your fellow campaigner and which he quoted on your last post. having just checked, it was as follows. the council wrote that the no right turn "will be evaluated after 6 months and there will be discussion with the ward councillors to "agree a way forward". call it what you will but that sounds very much like a trial to me. It means that the council is aware that the outcomes may be unpredictable. so they're going to review it after six months with a view to ceasing or amending it. i see no other way of interpreting it.
i'm not personally affected and I don't feel strongly about it, but I do think it should be given a chance. the council must have reasons for thinking it will work. oh, and i do feel strongly about people misleading others. i'm sure you had no intention to do so on purpose. i imagine that you somehow missed that particular post. so I'm sure you'll welcome my pointing out your error.
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Permalink Reply by Paul Harvey on
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Nothing strange going on - am well aware of the post you refer to, and am not at all attempting to mislead anybody - just sharing what has been revealed during the course of this discussion. Here is the post to which you refer....
"Interestingly, i've just now heard from Tony Kennedy confirming that this Hewit change is permanent not a trial, but saying that it will be evaluated after 6 months and there will be discussion with the ward councillors to "agree a way forward". He also agreed it was inevitable that traffic on Pemberton (thats the one with the primary schools and children's centre) would increase, but suggesting that the Green Lanes public realm improvements had priority"
As you'll see - Tony Kennedy (who I understand is the Traffic and Road Safety Manager at the Council) has stated that this is a permanent change and not a trial.
I have asked a number of times how (if at all) this will be 'evaluated' after six months, and as yet there have been no answers forthcoming. As has been discussed previously within the thread you are referring to, similar changes have been made to our area - with very little done to 'evaluate' the impact. The worry here is that an 'evaluation' will just be made to check that volumes of traffic have indeed reduced on Hewit Road. Clearly that will happen. Therefore the permanent change will be considered a success.
Without any reassurance as to what an evaluation of this change will mean, how it will be judged whether or not the change has been successful or achieved it's desired aims, and what judgement is made to assess or quantify the consequences/risks for those frequenting schools/children's centres - I think the sensible thing to do is object to this change on these terms.
Most are willing to accept a trial if there is transparency about what that actually involves and how impact would be evaluated - indeed, I'm one of them. At the moment - that is not forthcoming, so how can people trust that this is going to be a fair trial?
If the Council are able to clarify how they will evaluate the impact of this proposed change -then people will probably have more faith that it is going to be a 'fair trial'. At the moment, and as stated above - the Council are proposing a permanent change.
I would urge people concerned about the potential risk to those travelling to and from South Haringey Schools and Children's Centre to lodge an objection.
Cheers,
Paul
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i'm still a little confused. it seems like you left our the part about there definitely being an evaluation because you're sceptical about what sort of evaluation it will be. I can understand the sentiment that underpins your action without condoning the rather selective reporting.
i too would not always just take for granted what the council said, but I would assume oversight rather than intent to mislead. so if I were genuinely wiling to accept a trial, as you say you are, I would accept it and then work closely with the council to ensure it was properly evaluated. what I wouldn't do is to simply dismiss a potentially beneficial measure out of hand on the basis you seem to be doing.
by the way, have you actually asked the council if they've done a risk assessment or not? I'd imagine that they are statutorily bound to do so. i think it unlikely that they haven't done one this time.
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Hi again,
Yes, have enquired about risk assessments, about plans to evaluate - on what grounds etc. I'm not getting any answers. If anyone has any firm answers then please shout - would be great to see them, the more information the better, will help people make an informed choice. In the absence of any of these, how can people possibly accept that this proposed permanent change is anything less than ill thought through?
I appreciate you may interpret my stance as slightly cynical, possibly I am, but the Council have a track record in making changes which affect people's lives without any due assessment/evaluation of the consequences beyond the change achieving its primary goal. I'm referring in particular to the change made to gate off the gardens, with the only 'evaluation' serving to prove that traffic volumes had indeed been reduced on those roads. There was no assessment of impact on other roads. Clearly the impact of this change has caused significant volumes of traffic to use Hewit Road to access St Anns Road instead. Now the Council are proposing a permanent change to traffic flow on Hewit Road to reduce traffic there. Clearly this will move traffic elsewhere.... what then?
So - with that in mind, I and others are sceptical of the intention to 'evaluate' such a change to Hewit Road beyond finding that there is significant less traffic on that particular road. If this goes through, then people on Pemberton and Beresford Roads are left with lobbying the Council to move traffic that's been displaced onto their roads, onto other roads. It's short-termist and divisive.
I, like many others, object to tinkering in this way, therefore shifting traffic from one road on to another. A wider review of the whole area is what's called for.
Cheers,
Paul
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Permalink Reply by ant on
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Gosh Andrew, it seems a bit rich to be accusing Paul of being misleading here given the complete lack of transparency around the change. So 2 comments.
1) You say "The Council must have reasons for thinking it will work.". Well yes but remember what their stated goals are - "The initiative is designed to reduce congestion experienced at the St Ann’s junction as improvements to this junction is an integral part of the (public realm improvements) scheme.". The amount of traffic on roads like Beresford and Pemberton is not a concern of theirs for this change at this time.
2) The difference between a permanent change or a trial is defined by the road traffic regulations. This change is being made under the powers of a Permanent Traffic Management Order. To change it back would require another PTMO, whereas if it was a trial it would be being done with an Experimental Traffic Management Order which only last for 6 months after which it needs to be made permanent with a PTMO or reverted back. The reason they said they were using an ETMO for the original Hewit direction change was because that enabled them to avoid the lengthy consultation and statutory notification phase.I don't really understand how they can now be doing this new change under a PTMO because there doesn't seem to have been an official consultation and statutory notification about it. There's no notices or anything up on any of the lamp posts around there is there? And nothing on the council current consultations web page.
Anyway, what ever happens given how we've seen this come about it doesn't seem terribly likely to me that any "agree a way forward" would result in the change being reverted.
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thank you for that John T. my wife and I are great e f benson fans. this little touch of mapp & lucia cheered us up no end after a grueling week.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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I would point out that you started it by playing the man and not the ball..
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Permalink Reply by Judith Box on
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Honestly. Everything about all this traffic stuff has got me riled up. The whole thing pits neighbour against neighbour, creates enemy camps, and just degenerates into a whole us v's them fiasco.
Can I just say, for the sake of full disclosure. I am a Hewit Road resident and I don't necessrily want a no right turn at the bottom of my street. Not because I want to save the children, but because I don't think traffic can be dealt with on a Steet by street basis, or even for that matter on a gardens vs ladder basis. The issue really comes down to one of car usage and flow. We live in London, quickly expanding metropolis that it is. That means people, and people like cars and those cars have to go somewhere.....
But really it's all going to be irrelevant in 10 years time, because hopefully we will have electric self driving cars, that we can just call up to arrive and take us on our merry way.
I also think that the 'think of the children' argument is a bit of a lazy one. Children have to cross almost all the ladder roads to get to one or other of the schools, it's the same car whether is bombing up Pemberton, Hewit or Allison.
You know the area to the north of the ladder has one of the highest child poverty rates in London. If you want to save the children, then maybe finding ways to stop that would be a more valuable use of community time.
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I also think that the 'think of the children' argument is a bit of a lazy one. Children have to cross almost all the ladder roads to get to one or other of the schools
Not all the children going to the schools go via Hewit Rd, there are plenty of other routes and directions they come from, probably vastly more of the children don't go via Hewit Rd.
Anyway, if you really don't want the no right turn at the bottom of your street you should send a response saying that. One of the arguments Hewit people have given is that all they want is a more fair and equal distribution of the traffic, but this change isn't doing that as Pemberton and Beresford will become disproportionately busy. If enough people object then they can have a third attempt at fixing it and that time do a proper consultation and come up with a package of changes that makes more people better off than worse off.
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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And a holistic traffic study is the only way to do that.
Otherwise, make any change and people are going to say that traffic in their road is now worse ( or better ? ) without any data to prove or disprove it.
Any statement that includes the word " probably " is of no value.
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But how do you know how the traffic is going to react to any change? On one hand people are arguing that there needs to be a proper study and how do we all measure that, and on the other hand everyone is trying to second guess what the outcomes are going to be to support whichever side of the camp they feel they stand on.
I never said the children come from Hewit Road, the point I was trying to make is that ladder children cross all ladder roads, coming from the small catchment areas of both schools. If you want to make a difference to the safety of children at either school then you need to focus on the traffic caused by families who have moved out of the area bringing their children to school in cars, which then get parked in front of said schools causing safety hazards.
I think we also need to wary of branding people Hewitroadites and the like. Hewit Road does not have a democratically elected body who speaks on behalf of the whole street. It does have a bunch of people who feel there is something they want to change. Whilst I might not agree with that position, I admire them for their tenacity and organisation.
As I think I have said, for me these issues are much bigger than a street by street basis. Yes consultations and studies would be all well and good, but they take resourcing away from other stuff, that I feel is actually more important. Like funding families who are living way below the poverty line and making sure they have access to better resources and support,
As for traffic, I'm in the design to make it freely flowing camp. Whilst working on a Nationwide culture change to reduce car usage. Ad I'm serious about the electric cars. Driverless cars are closer than we think, and that will change the whole nature of traffic management
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Sorry but to me that just sounds like fingers in the ears la la la stuff. Its not hard to see what will happen to the traffic if there is just a single change on one street. With this change the majority of the traffic will just move to the streets either side. We don't know the proportion each of those two streets will get, but we do know that those two streets are already quite busy ones, so it will either be about an equal split which will make both streets much busier than now or it wont be an equal split and one of them will become even busier than Hewit is today.
That suggestion that a significant amount of the traffic is people who've moved out of the area doing school runs isn't true either. We know that because if you look at those graphs i posted of the traffic on the streets with schools you can see the little humps at school run time and the humps are much smaller than the total volume of traffic on the street at that time. The vast majority of the traffic on the Ladder is people just passing through not stopping here.
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