Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Living Wightman: A safer, healthier, happier Harringay for everyone
Harringay residents gather to support the 'Living Wightman' message (Photo: Hugh Flouch)
Wightman Road is living again.
With the traffic dramatically reduced as a result of the bridge works, this is a residential community reborn.
A place where children play in the street, neighbours stop for a chat, families cycle safely through to Finsbury Park and that joggers and commuters can enjoy rather than endure.
For many of us, the idea of Wightman Road returning to a noisy, polluted traffic-clogged rat-run is unthinkable.
The peace today brings into sharp focus the nightmare that its residents have long suffered as a result of decades of planning decisions that have seen their needs come second every time to those of drivers using their home as a rat run.
Wightman Road is, unquestionably, a residential road. Despite this, it was having a massively disproportionate share of local traffic dumped on it –120,000 vehicles a week – only 40,000 less than, Green Lanes.
This level of traffic was generating dangerous levels of pollution, with children most at risk. Levels of nitrogen dioxide - a pollutant that inflames the lungs, stunts growth and increases the odds of respiratory diseases such as cancer and asthma – were much higher than EU legal limits.
Given the high proportion of deprived households on Wightman Road, some of the poorest children in Harringay were paying the price for those motorists who were using it as a rat run.
As such, Wightman Road represents in microcosm a wider divide in Harringay, which sees poorer residents suffer for the convenience of their wealthier neighbours. While 62% of households in our ward don’t have a car, ownership is high in surrounding areas such as Crouch End and Muswell Hill.
We should no longer tolerate this injustice, and we must not ignore this daily threat to the health of our community, and our children.
One of the first things that the new London Mayor, Sadiq Khan, did when he took office last month was to publish a major report on air quality. He also said nothing should be off limits when it came to tackling the issue.
He said: “Half a million under-19s in London are breathing in air in breach of NO2 levels. Separate from that, we know the air in London is responsible for 10,000 deaths last year and in parts of London children have under-developed lungs.”
But it’s not just lethal traffic pollution on Wightman Road that was a problem.
This traffic included foundation-shaking, thunderous lorries and HGVs that breach the tonnage limit with impunity. The bridge-strengthening works will give the green light for even heavier vehicles.
And more traffic will be generated by an estimated 7,500 new households created by the massive residential developments in the immediate and surrounding areas – including at Hawes & Curtis, Wightman Road Hornsey Station, Heartlands sites, Smithfield Square on Hornsey High Street and Tottenham Hale. Whilst we support the building of more affordable homes, it’s important to recognise that Harringay will accommodate a disproportionately high level of new housing in the borough. Wightman Road and the Ladder are right in the middle of all this development.
So when the bridge works finish in September, we won’t be going to back to how it was. It’s going to get worse.
So it’s in everyone’s interests that we act NOW to stand up for the quality of life of local residents, particularly children who face stark health inequalities, on Wightman Road and the surrounding area.
This is the aim behind Living Wightman; a group of residents who have come together to campaign for a safer, healthier and happier future for Wightman Road and the rest of the Ladder roads and, in doing so, inform a major initiative that Haringey Council is currently leading to address the traffic problems that have blighted Harringay for years.
In doing so, we are acutely aware of the concerns of businesses that have been affected by the current restrictions, particularly with the closure of the Alroy Road end, and congestion generated elsewhere and of the inconvenience experienced by residents in and around the Ladder.
Mindful of this, we are asking for the following:
Firstly, we’re requesting that Haringey Council extend the current arrangements beyond summer to allow time to find a long-term solution that drastically reduces traffic on Wightman Road. It isn’t practical to completely open and then limit traffic on Wightman. It would reproduce the initial chaos we all suffered when a change in access was first put in place.
Secondly, we’re proposing that any long-term solution allows access for local businesses and their customers, but stops Wightman Road being used a rat run through route as part of overall measures to improve traffic flow in the surrounding area.
Thirdly, in the meantime, we want to encourage even more people to take advantage of a safer, healthier, quieter Wightman Road, especially cyclists to use it as an alternative to Green Lanes as a route to Central London . We also want residents to share their experiences and ideas about how we can build on these gains and go forward.
There will be those who say it can’t be done.
You only have to look at access restrictions in the Gardens roads, on Hermitage Road and Harringay Road to see that this is not the case.
There will be those who say that the surrounding areas can’t cope with the displaced traffic.
The current situation, with congestion at times, at certain pinch points , is certainly far from ideal, but we know that there has been a drop in car journeys as a result of Wightman Road no longer being used as a rat run.
Anecdotally, many residents also report walking, cycling and using public transport more and, if they have cars, using them more thoughtfully – for example, running errands as part of one journey rather than making lots of short trips.
This decline in car use can only help ease congestion in the long-term and be welcome if the Council is serious about meeting its ambitious aim of reducing carbon emissions by 40% in just four years.
But there is no question that we are anti-car. Many of us are motorists. Rather that the Living Wightman campaign is pro-people and communities.
The current arrangements on Wightman Road – for example, pavements in terrible condition impassable to wheelchairs and buggies in some places because of cars parked on the pavement rather than the road, are about as anti-people as you can get.
They are unsafe, potentially in breach of equalities laws and prioritise the rights of people using the road as a rat run over those who live there.
This cannot be right and is totally unfair.
We only want for our children and quality of life what our neighbours in places where this has been made a priority are getting without question.
No residential road should have 120,000 cars, vans and lorries roaring past people’s homes every week
No child should have their health put at risk and their lives cut short by dangerous levels of pollution
As we are seeing now, in a safer, healthier, happier Wightman Road, there is a better way for Harringay .
So let’s be ambitious and imaginative in striving for this together.
What can you do?
To find out more, get involved, tell us what you think, share your ideas, please get in touch. You can:
- Email us at livingwightman@gmail.com
- Join our facebook group: Living Wightman
- Follow us on Twitter at @Living_Wightman
- Help us raise £500 to fund the Living Wightman campaign by making a donation at Just Giving Living Wightman.
Tags for Forum Posts: traffic, wightman bridge, wightman bridge closure
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Nick on
-
Not only Green Lanes - many other roads around the borough are being affected - as far as Wood Green and Crouch End.
-
Permalink Reply by Mavic Starfish on
-
and West Green Road / Belmont Road
-
Permalink Reply by matthew cuthbert on
-
Let's have a pact. I get the Overland so I don't spend 49 minutes, at best, on a round trip everyday, avoiding Wood Green. Instead it is 9 minutes each way, and I can check emails and read a paper.
I will also catch the bus/ bike to cricket with the kids.
-
Permalink Reply by Penny A on
-
Chris, the full point explains the logic ie
"Firstly, we’re requesting that Haringey Council extend the current arrangements beyond summer to allow time to find a long-term solution that drastically reduces traffic on Wightman Road. It isn’t practical to completely open and then limit traffic on Wightman. It would reproduce the initial chaos we all suffered when a change in access was first put in place".
The campaign recognises that ultimate solutions need to include reduction of traffic across the broader Harringay area including Green Lanes. However Wightman Road and the Ladder can not go back to being a traffic dump for Haringey; this is not selfish, it is putting people and communities before traffic.
-
-
2000 cars an hour in peak times, says it all. In my view Wightman and St Ann's should be delisted as B Roads at the least.
All our health is affected, it's as if we are in denial over pollution in London, the deaths caused each year is staggering. We don't want to move out for better health, we want to stay an grow in London.
-
-
What about Ferme Park Road, or Middle Lane, or hundreds of other 'residential' roads around the borough? Should they all be closed to through traffic? Serious question.
Is Green Lanes not mostly residential? About the typical shop you have probably 3 / 4 flats - so is the road then 80% residential? Why is it fair to dump all the traffic onto Green Lanes?
Obviously most people would prefer not to have through traffic on their street but in the case of Wightman Road, the current closure has negatively affected a large number of people across the borough, who are seeing massively increased journey times (including on buses) and more, slower traffic on their own streets.
I have yet to see the organisers of this campaign address any of the counter arguments given in this thread.
-
-
Glad we cut our half term break short to attend, great aspirations for Harringay, keep up the energy.
-
Permalink Reply by Pat on
-
But Matt, the current situation on Green Lanes and around Tottenham Lane, Hornsey is also untenable. Nearly 40 minutes on a Saturday morning to get from Holloway Road to Pemberton by bus. Regardless of whether Wightman and St Ann's are delisted, car drivers will still use the roads as there are few alternative routes for traffic from the north, west and east all feeding into the area. I support the goal for Wightman but the current vision does not take a whole community view.
-
Permalink Reply by Ben Rometsch on
-
What is the campaign's strategy for reducing traffic across Haringey? I live near Alexandra Palace station, and cycle to work (along Wightman Road). It's great that the cycle has got a lot better since the closure, but Im not sure the people behind this campaign appreciate quite how much it has affected traffic in the area. There are daily bumper to bumper queues *north* of Alexandra Palace, along the road around the Palace, up towards Bounds Green. The traffic is like that pretty much every day. No doubt the traffic is equally bad in other directions.
I cycle to work, and also want less cars on the road, but the strategy of closing roads because residents liked it when their road was closed is not a solution. It's a problem. If everyone did that, where would we be?
People are talking about health; cars sitting in traffic are emitting more pollution than they would have done if they had clearer roads; pollution as a whole is going up.
I'd love it if there were less cars on the road in London, but I think this campaign is answering an easy question, and failing to even tackle the harder one.
-
Permalink Reply by JoeW on
-
the strategy of closing roads because residents liked it when their road was closed is not a solution. It's a problem. If everyone did that, where would we be?
It would look something like this:
-
-
They aren't closing B roads though. Look, I agree with everyone that there is too much traffic going down the Wightman Road - it's not a major road. The problem is that is the current status quo. Suddenly shutting a B road without any mitigation is massively inconveniencing hundreds of thousands of people and creating a net increase in pollution in London.
I support reducing car traffic, but there needs to be mitigation before there can be road closures.
-
-
Your point about B roads is worth discussing further. I understand one of the purposes of the A/B/minor road classification system is to determine funding for maintenance - A roads carrying traffic between major destinations or population centres get more funding than B roads which carry traffic from smaller population centres onto the A roads. The original classification of Wightman as a B road was therefore presumably to ensure a reasonable level of funding for the upkeep of a road intended for the use of Harringay Ladder residents travelling to and from either the A504 (Turnpike Lane) to the north or the A1201 (Stroud Green Road) to the south.
Obviously much has changed since roads were originally classified, including numerous piecemeal traffic reduction measures in neighbouring areas as illustrated in the previous post. The end result is that Wightman carries a far greater volume of traffic than was ever intended - in fact the traffic survey in January recorded more vehicles at two of the Wightman Road measuring points than on Turnpike Lane which is supposed to be an A-road! I think around 210,000 vehicle journeys are made along some part of Wightman every week - this figure is much higher than the 100-114K vehicles counted at each point in the traffic survey, because almost 90% of Wightman traffic is only there for the purpose of ratrunning up or down one of the (minor road!) ladder "rungs". This ratrunning needs a local solution similar to the piecemeal measures in the surrounding area, but the local geography makes that extremely difficult without some sort of closure of Wightman itself.
You're absolutely right that this will then needs mitigation and across a wide area - many ideas have already been put forward e.g. in this thread, I don't know if the right answers have been found yet (or whether as a local or even borough-wide community we have the ability to implement all of them), but as someone else said earlier, we can't just return to the previous status quo.
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
