Lewisham's Sustainable Streets is a bit of a lemon
Let's make some lemonade
Today’s newsletter is all about turning lemons into lemonade ☀️
The lemons
As you will know, we have had numerous promises and assurances that the Sustainable Streets consultation will provide us with the moment to finally fix the problems that make Drakefell & Gellatly roads so dangerous for pedestrians. We’ve had councillors, council officers, the principle engineer all sooth us with stories of the rosy future post-Sustainable Streets. So when we learned that the programme comes with no remit for capital spend, and no capacity for road change, we were, to put it lightly, absolutely f-ing furious.
Stay tuned for further updates on our conversations with Lewisham councillors and politicians at all points on the ladder to address this.
The lemonade
For now we have a live Sustainable Streets consultation that allows us to map our concerns about the street, and provide Lewisham with (more) irrefutable evidence of the need for safety improvements on the road. So we intend to use it.
We have until 4th June to get this all down.
How Sustainable Streets works
Lewisham are inviting types of road user to drop pins onto a map and highlight areas or specific spots where improvements can be made. Lewisham will then take the information provided and use this to make decisions on where changes are needed. Our job is to make it abundantly clear what the problems are, and how they affect us.
What we want to achieve through Sustainable Streets
Below we have highlighted the three areas of the consultation that we, as a campaign group, have a a view on. We have provided some suggested comments and phrasing that you can use to get your started.
Pavement parking
Removing pavement parking would make journeys as a pedestrian possible. At the moment many parts of Drakefell and Gellatly Roads are difficult to access with prams, luggage, wheelchairs or shopping because cars take up the limited pavement space. And let’s not even mention bin day…
What you can do to remove pavement parking?
Cover the map in all the places that pavement parking is a problem for you, give detail on how it affects your day to day. Whilst bin day is an issue, we want to keep the focus on vehicles on the pavement
“Cars taking up limited pavement space makes getting to the station/school/to the shops difficult”
“Cars parked on the pavement make it difficult/impossible to use the pavement whilst holding my toddler’s hand/using my wheelchair/carrying my shopping”
Parking
We have heard from many of you that parking reduces sight lines at the already dangerous crossing points on the road.
Use the map to highlight where parked cars reduce sight lines at crossing points if this affects you.
“Parked cars reduce sight-lines at this crossing point that I use daily/weekly to xxx”
Safer Crossing Spots
This is a big one. Please fill the map with all the points that you would like a safer crossing spot.
“I cross here X times a day with my X and find it dangerous at the moment”
“I have had a near miss with traffic crossing at this spot”
“Cars speed up after the junction/bend/width restriction and I find crossing here dangerous”
Gellatly Road
A major oversight from the survey is that they have neglected to include Gellatly Road… we raised this concern in a stakeholder briefing with the Sustainable Streets team and we’re told that we can use the map to raise this concern, and they will respond to feedback.
How to fill in the survey
Head to www.lewishamsustainablestreets.commonplace.is and look for the Brockley and surrounds consultation.
Here is a short video demo of how to use the online consultation.
If you’d prefer to do this on paper, you can grab a copy from The Hill Centre on Kitto Road.
Final notes
You don’t need to be a resident to complete this, but you do need to use the road.
Numbers count. Even if someone has said the same thing at a specific point on the map, please say it too. We need to prove the volume of concern.
Paper versions of the form with free post envelopes are available at The Hill Centre. Please share these with anyone you think might prefer to do the survey offline.
You have until the 4th June to complete it, it takes just a few minutes to do so now is a good time!
Don’t forget to verify your email address, or your comments won’t count.
Cheers 🍹 from your friends at Drakefell and Gellatly United