Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Wood Green car-free plan axed
Proposals to transform Wood Green into a car-free shopping haven have been scrapped.
The plan had been drawn up in a bid to breathe new life into Wood Green town centre and establish it as a successful metropolitan shopping centre.
Pedestrianisation was mooted as one part of the image overhaul which Haringey Council hopes will attract “affluent” spenders to the area.
The proposals aim to tackle what the council sees as three decades of decline.
But at a planning meeting last Thursday council officers said they had dropped the idea following opposition from residents consulted earlier this year.
Around 450 people signed an online petition amid fears that banning cars from High Road would increase traffic in the Harringay Ladder.
Eddie Finnegan, of Wightman Road, said: "Bus-only or pedestrianisation of Wood Green High Road is superficially attractive until you consider the consequences. As a Harringay resident for 31 years I know what those will be. Traffic will be atrocious and it will only get worse."
Councillor Gina Adamou, who represents Harringay ward, said Green Lanes traders were also concerned that shutting off the high street would drive customers away.
The pedestrianisation plan had been devised to tackle the loss of trade in Wood Green.
Customers and high-quality retailers have turned their back on the area in favour of shopping centres at Brent Cross and Enfield, the council said. It suggested that pedestrianising High Road, or making it only open to buses, would make it safer and more attractive to shoppers.
Councillor Ray Dodds, deputy chairman of the planning commitee, said: “I know there are concerns, but there’s also an opportunity to do something really positive for Wood Green.
"Wood Green’s high street is dying. You go into Marks and Spencers and you can only get the end-of -the-line stuff, for anything better you have to go to elsewhere. That’s what Wood Green has been reduced to. We have to be more imaginative."
Officers said "no commitment" would be given to a bus-only High Road without a review of the impact of traffic on surrounding streets. But they said the council’s vision includes better bus routes and improved cycling facilities.
If the plan is approved, Shopping City will be redeveloped with the possibility of a department store moving to the area. The number of fast-food outlets and budget shops would be reduced.
Public services like a polyclinics and police “shops” would be introduced and Wood Green Central Library would be refurbished or relocated to a new premises in High Road.
A decision on the plans will be taken at a cabinet meeting on October 14.
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Tags for Forum Posts: traffic, wightman Road, wood green, wood green spd
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Then that would be Tony Kennedy, who, it seems, spends a good deal of his day with Brian Haley.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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Poor man
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Permalink Reply by RuthE on
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I noticed how friendlier and more relaxed people seemed without all those cars on the road. Apart from the pollution, cars really do cause alot of stress to people but we've got so used to it, out of lack of choice, we don't realise how traffic effects our quality of life. Having cycled all over london for the past 15+ years, I believe that Haringey/ woodgreen /Green lanes is one of the most dangerous places to cycle in London (if not the world). One of the main reasons people choose not to cycle is not laziness, its fear of cycling so near to cars and I don't blame them. If it was made safer more people would cycle. The council should make cycling its priority. It must make quite a bit of revenue from all those fines they give out to drivers in the borough, the least they could spend it on is some cycle lanes. I'm quite tempted sometimes to buy some green paint and do some guerrilla cycle lane painting in the middle of the night.
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Precisely Ruth and it's not only about friendliness; there's a real issue about people's health and wellbeing. People spend alot more time in their house than they do on a high street. To sacrifice one for the other is just daft.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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Excellent idea. I have a few large old brushes.... So we start at 2am after the next drinks night?
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Permalink Reply by Danzigger on
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Bike lanes are helpful, but separating cars from bikes isn't the answer to sharing road space in the city. Motorist come to expect them and think that is the only place for a bike to be. There are better ways to make cycling safer and more popular.
Most importantly, we need to establish some kind of mutual understanding between cars and bikes, because it sometimes feels like a war zone at the moment! If cyclists would respect red lights and one way streets, then perhaps car drivers would have more respect for cycle lanes and those areas reserved for bikes by traffic lights (do they have a name?) and give bikes more room when they overtake.
Secondly, we should introduce the "presumed fault" thing they have in The Netherlands, where a car driver who hits a cyclist is assumed to have been at fault until it can be shown otherwise.
Third, slow down the traffic. 20, even as low as 15mph limits would save hundreds of lives every year, reduce pollution etc. etc. and might persuade more people to ditch their cars for a bike.
I'd like to see a zero tolerance approach traffic offences. It's incredible what people assume they can get away with in terms of speeding, ignoring signs, jumping lights etc.
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Permalink Reply by StephenBln on
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Haringey Central area scheme in 1980
The extension of Wightman Road via a new Hornsey Park Road can clearly be seen, as well as the eatern relief road.. Planned for over 40 years, the council still haven't managed to implement it.
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My point is that everybody here talks as if the whole thing has come out of the blue.. it hasn't.. its been known for years that WG High Road would become pedestrianised..
I haven't lived in LBHgy since 1975 but I knew.. how comes those that lived there didn't..
I agree with Matt, Wood Green Shopping Area is good for the area.. provides amongst other things, jobs.. and people who work there use other facilties..
If you're driving from south of Harringay to north of Wood Green you're not going to go via the ladder and Wightman road.. you're going to go to the east..
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"If you're driving from south of Harringay to north of Wood Green you're not going to go via the ladder and Wightman road.. you're going to go to the east." - Don't work like that Stephen. People use Wightman and cut up and down tha ladder rungs to go east.
With regards to the old plan - it makes sense. If you're going to cut out the high road, a non-residential relief road is an excellent answer.
I'm not sure why you think we'd have heard about this Steve. It's probably been mothballed since 66. (We might have been though if you'd told us three months ago :o). )
What I wonder is whether the councillors are aware of it. Had they considered it as an option? If they had to choose funding this road or their new town hall, which would they choose?
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That' my point Hugh, whereas the other Outer London Shopping centres proposed in the 1966 plan have built their relief roads, Ilford, Romford, Croydon... Haringey never managed to do it.. perhaps they never had the money??
I'll say it again, they tried to implement the pedestrianisation without the relief road.. doing it on the cheap .. so to speak..
I think everyone who cares for the area should be in favour of re-juvenisation and upgrading of the shopping area, But perhaps there should be more emphasis in building the north-south relief road?
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