Forum topic: 21 flats planned near Fox Lane bridge

Like Colin Younger I attended the meeting of the Fox Lane & District Residents’ Association (FLDRA) meeting on 6th November. Unfortunately I wasn’t feeling too good, and therefore felt unable to contribute to the debate about the conversion of Dumayne House to flats.

Several arguments against the conversion were put forward, but I found none of them convincing. Least of all the concern about the fact that access to the car park is very close to the railway bridge, and nearly opposite access to the new houses which are to be built between Caversham Avenue and the railway line. It’s true that drivers coming from Green Lanes are blind to what lies beyond the bridge until they reach the top of the rise, and equally true that some drive so fast that it would be difficult to stop should anyone be leaving Dumayne House. But the key issue is this: “Would it be morally acceptable to deprive people of the possibility of somewhere to live in a city with an acute housing shortage because drivers can’t be trusted to drive intelligently and unselfishly?”. Surely not. It’s for the council to either satisfy itself that the situation isn’t any more dangerous than now or, if the danger is significant, to find ways of calming the traffic.

In fact the chairman of the residents’ association had already raised the issue of safety at the bridge with the council’s traffic engineers, and had been assured that they didn’t foresee a difficulty. Which it’s fair to say left members incredulous.

Nevertheless it’s worth evaluating the traffic engineers’ assurance, and my thinking is:

• a heightened possibility of accidents is not at all obvious from traffic travelling towards Green Lanes because parked vehicles narrow the carriageway reducing speed on the approach, and because the sightline to the exit from Dumayne House is long;

• traffic from the opposite direction has no sightline at all until the moment drivers breast the bridge so the danger is highest from that side, and

• because the bridge comes first the danger of accident is higher there than at Dumayne House.

The traffic engineers seem to have a point, especially as, to my knowledge, accidents at the bridge haven’t been common.

Finally there are the implications of the increasing tendency to park on the rise from Green Lanes towards the bridge to assess. Personally it makes me very cautious indeed as I approach the bridge, so I’m clear that if traffic calming turns out to be necessary this is the place to put it.