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 Anette on
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Unbelievable! Well done to Rachael. As for the rest of your plan, I'm just guessing the wife would want to keep you for a while longer, so possibly not the recommended action.. :D
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Permalink Reply by Alison P on
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Has anyone noticed any change in this? Prompted to post by house shaking as EMPTY (so my husband tells me) skip lorry charges up our road...
Also, remember John (I think) posting handy photos that show different size of skip lorry - but can't find it. If anyone can link me to it that would be fab.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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This is the post (I just used the search function top right - and searched on "skip").
Funny that you should post this right now. I just had a series of very heavy lorries thunder past my house, shaking us as they went.
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Great, thanks. I did search myself but obviously not well enough! (A familiar tale in this household....)
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Permalink Reply by phippsofacto on
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Not that I want unnecessary signs plastered everywhere, but I don't think the ladder roads are clear enough about the restrictions. I'm sure most of the offenders wouldn't give a monkey's anyway, but it could help.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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I have stopped some truck drivers and had sometimes angry conversations with them. I used to think they didn't see the signs too but they know very well when they're on a road they're allowed to be on. It's not the signs, it's the fact some of us are such fabulous shortcuts. We cut out four sets of lights...
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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I just had a quick look and I don't see any weight restriction signs at the entrance to Hampden Rd or Frobisher. Has the Council taken them down ?
At the same time, I saw this signage at the entrance to Hampden - what does it mean ?
You can drive both ways on Hampden if you want access to a house on that road ?
You can go one way on Hampden unless you want access in which case you can't ?
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Oh I see - the "Except for access" refers to the non-existent weight restriction sign. So who took it down?
And sorry, there is a weight restriction sign at the top of Frobisher - somehow I missed it.
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I reported this to Tony Kennedy at the council a year ago and he promised to do something ASAP. He's a bit useless to be honest. Or do you think I should have "chased" him?
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P111MOD came down Lausanne Rd at 6:31 and 7:25am on Thursday morning. A quick call to O'Donovans depot in Tottenham (on speed dial on my phone - 02088019561) and I spoke to the supervisor who will have a word with the driver.
How are we all doing for HGV visits? I notice that we're a short cut for the 28 ton rubbish trucks who no longer creep down the street.
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What on earth are they doing going down Stanmore Rd? Is there a building site north of you that they are going to? When the works were being done at the top of Hampden last year we had a huge issue with trucks at the top of the ladder.
This is their Depot in Markfield Rd so you can see why they use West Green Rd if they're heading West.
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