Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
New Town Square Proposed over A1201 in Crouch End Centre
If the proposers of Crouch End have their way, the A1201 by the clocktower will have one of its forks blocked in order to create a new "town square".
I'm all for town squares anywhere. but it does look to me that this proposed scheme will create a significant hurdle for buses and reduce traffic flow on a key 'A' road.
The plans follow the announcement earlier in the year that Haringey won the initial stage of TfL’s liveable Neighbourhoods programme. They now have £1.25m to develop the proposals and are looking at a pot worth £5.8 million if everything comes together. I hope part of the initial funding is spent on an impact assessment at least as stringent as the one imposed on the recent Wightman proposals and covering just as wide an area, if not wider.
The Crouch End Forum have put forward a proposal which includes the 'Waitrose Square'. Full proposal attached.
Looking to our East and then to our West, one has to wonder whether there aren't other areas more in need of £6m than Crouch End. As much as I love the old girl, it's not the area most in need of, as the Council put it, "proposals to improve cyclist and pedestrian conditions ", nor, as the Crouch End Forum claim, the one in need of an injection of life into the high street.
When there's very limited funds, the Council needs to search its conscience about where the funds are directed. So, all eyes on the new administration to see where their priorities truly lie.
As for Harringay, we'd be well advised to keep an eye on the possible impact on our neighbourhood.
- Attachments:
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by vaneska on
-
As a pedestrian who passes by the Clocktower every day, I would point out that the roads being blocked off - Crouch Hall Road and Weston Park, are not rat runs. Relatively little traffic either exits from Crouch Hall Road (rarely more than a couple of cars per traffic light phase) or enters Weston Park. This scheme seems to me to be all about the pedestrian and perhaps that mythical mass of cyclists that someone somewhere is envisaging swarming up Crouch Hill and Crouch End Hill.
While I'm all for thinking of the pedestrian, I think the bigger problem in Crouch End is volume of traffic and it is not clear to me whether this scheme would have any impact either way.
-
Permalink Reply by Isabelle on
-
Agree with Crouch Hall Road being a quiet road.
Had not noticed that Weston Park is also getting blocked! I agree there's not much traffic there also, but not with blocking it, as it's hardly of interest to pedestrians (the bakery maybe, or more coffee shops could take advantage, in case there aren't enough already) ; it would force drivers who need this turn to go further, through the Broadway and into the library road, a big circle into residential areas... doesn't make sense to me.
Reducing the volume of traffic... well that's reducing the volume of cars, or of people going places with their cars. That's what I've done in recent years after parking restrictions in Crouch End and Finsbury Park I rarely visit the areas nowadays.
-
-
Agree. I have noticed for some time that bus journeys into Crouch End from Turnpike Lane on a Saturday are very slow because cars are allowed to park as they like in Tottenham Lane. There seems to be no joining up between this scheme for a 'square' in the Broadway, and the plans for the Town Hall and the area behind it. I gather there have been plenty of objections to the height of the proposed flats at the back - surely some car parking to address the general parking stress in Crouch End could have been insisted on........they will have to build foundations for the flats, why not put some parking spaces in underneath? I have also seen some comments on the Crouch End Forum blog saying that MORE congestion would be pretty OK because the aim is to help walkers and cyclists....Well more congestion will amongst other things bring much more air pollution, which will not help walkers or sitters or cyclists.....also the plans for the square seem to involve restricting the width of Tottenham Lane...yet more congestion..Also, when I go to Crouch End, usually in the afternoons, I see that many of the people on foot are quite elderly.............they are not suddenly going to take to cycling. People in cars...well mostly going through, doing school runs, or going shopping I would say. Many of them going to start cycling? I don't think so. Oh and the more traffic congestion there is, the more people in cars will use the smaller surrounding roads. Cannot remotely see this scheme working unless some solution is offered to how the traffic is to be managed - wishing it away will not work.
-
Permalink Reply by John D on
-
I've never understood why the car park behind the Town Hall is always locked. It seems to be a private fiefdom for council workers ( who aren't there any more ).
-
Permalink Reply by Hugh on
-
It used to be open 9 to 5 up till about a week ago. For the last couple of years the six spaces at the rear were open to anyone. It’s now closed off, I assume for good.
-
-
No, You're thinking of the parking behind the Library. I'm talking about the huge park next door.
-
-
I am. I thought that’s the one you meant. Do you mean the one next to that, fronting on to Haringey Park?
-
-
Yes. Where they park the outside broadcast vehicles when shooting in the Town Hall. Empty most of the time.
-
-
Yes, not sure why that car park next to the library was always kept locked. Even though it's not directly behind the Town Hall, it was part of the sale of the hall and is now destined for development.
-
-
Wheesh, really not sure about that left turn for the W7. It looks pretty tight even for the W5, especially when they're running the single deckers rather than the Optare minibuses...
Worst case scenario here is they make a concession to this by having a bus lane across the "square" - with the frequency of the W7 and some of the lunatics CT Plus employ to drive the W5, I'm not sure it'd make the blindest bit of difference to the space.
Other than that... I largely agree with the idea, although it does concern me what is to become of the square outside the town hall, and it'd be nice if some of that money could be spent somewhere other than one of the places that already has a lot of it...
-
Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
-
The left turn is very doable. Look how far back traffic heading out of that street has to stop.
- ‹ Previous
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- Next ›
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
