Forum topic: Mini-Holland scheme: Will our high streets really be "sacrificed"?

There was standing room only at tonight's meeting about "shared space" organised by the Enfield Town Conservation Area Study Group held in the Civic Centre.

The main speaker, Ben Hamilton-Baillie, an urban designer and movement specialist, gave a very persuasive presentation on the philosophy and history of highway and urban design with particular emphasis on the challenge the retail revolution presented to the traditional high street. It was no longer essential to visit town centres because of the internet and out of town shopping centres. People needed other reasons to visit local shopping centres, and a key to this would be the quality of the experience. He suggested that high streets had historically had two main functions, traffic movement, and the exchange of goods and personal services. Traditional highway management had been to favour the former against the latter, and in fact had made the latter more difficult and indeed an unattractive experience. The evidence is in the empty shops.

Though admitting that after only ten hours in Enfield he could not advise on the situation facing the Town, his photographs and comments on the streetscape were striking - enabling the audience to see aspects through fresh eyes. He commented that Enfield was one of the most cluttered centres he had seen as regards street furniture, with large areas tied up as traffic islands to no benefit to pedestrians and shoppers!

This is not an attempt to summarise the whole evening, a record of that will be produced in due course. However, I think it was clear that the audience was very impressed by his analysis, by the evidence backing up his arguments, and strongly supported the need to look carefully at how this should modify Enfield's approach to mini-holland. My own initial view is that careful application of shared space ideas to Palmers Green around the Triangle and main shopping areas along Green Lanes and Aldermans Hill could have a positively transformative impact and achieve the aims of benefiting cyclists, shop owners and pedestrians alike.

The Council Cabinet is to take the proposed governance arrangements for the mini holland project (re-branded Cycle Enfield) on 17 September. The link to the report is

governance.enfield.gov.uk/documents/s47054/CYCLEENV%2014%2016%20Cabinet%202.pdf

The development of the Enfield Town part of the original mini-holland scheme is more advanced than it is for Green Lanes. It is worth keeping an eye on the process there to help thinking about Palmers Green.

One of the contentious issues raised in Enfield Town is whether a different approach based on shared space rather than traffic (ie cycle) segregation might not be better from a wider perspective, in particular for pedestrians, buses, and the overall shopping environment.

There is still uncertainty about how dogmatic the GLA (and hence LBE) are about cycle segregation along all the routes in question. However, the Enfield Town options does (or did?) refer to shared space as an option originally ruled out on safety grounds but then reconsidered after a visit to St John's Road in Clapham. I've attached the extract from the paper "Church Street Urban Design Treatments - Options".

I don't know how directly applicable this might be to the main Palmers Green shopping area not having seen this developement, but I think that consideration of a solution based on shared space principles should be considered. It seems to me that (pedestrian) movement across Green Lanes is surely as important as movement along it. The current proposal for hard segregated cycle lanes might also cause problems for bus traffic and passengers (note the proposed loss of the bus stop by the Fox).



Colin Younger

Andrew Gilligan has just visited Enfield Town at the invitation of the Enfield Town Conservation Area Study Group. It now seems that the Green Lanes part of the mini-holland/cycle Enfield project will precede the main Enfield Town aspect.

St John's Road in Clapham is noted in the Enfield Town proposal as a possible shared space option for Church Street. I went to look at the way it has been implemented to see whether it had lessons for Palmers Green. Though it has interesting aspects, it depends on banning car and lorry through traffic, and so isn't of direct relevance to Palmers Green's shopping areas.

The more I see of the project and the arguments for and against, the more it seems to me that insufficient attention has been given to the effects on bus routes along, and pedestrian movements across, Green Lanes. If the quieter neighbourhoods schemes go ahead it seems likely to put more traffic on to Green Lanes, which although it may be a plus for residential roads, will complicate matters so far as mini-holland goes.

That is not to say that I am against either scheme, just that more thought needs to be given to them. They both offer potential benefits, and it would be a pity if these were not realised

This is in response to the posting by Andrew Nix.
Cycle lanes are a central part of the bid, and it will need some intervention to adapt it to local circumstances. Palmers Green is an obvious place to move towards a shared space solution which allows more freedom to pedestrians criss-crossing Green Lanes, and slows down traffic to a continuous safe stream rather than imposing stops/starts at traffic lights/pedestrian controlled lights. Buses and cyclists could also benefit. Retention of the Triangle, which the recent consultation showed was very popular, could also be included rather than being removed and replaced by a T-junction as the bid proposes.