Enfield Council has relaunched its Quieter Neighbourhoods project (by my count, for the second time) by publishing its proposals for the "Wolves Lane Quieter Neighbourhood". Curiously, however, Wolves Lane itself doesn't even appear on the map on the consultation leaflet - it shows only Melville Gardens and streets to the east - and the suggested changes would only affect a small area around Oakthorpe School and certainly not create a "quieter neighbourhood".
Only three changes are proposed, at least two of which (and probably all three) are intended to improve road safety around Oakthorpe School, which was the subject of a petition to the council earlier this year. The "school street" proposal would close Tile Kiln Lane to all cars except residents' during school arrival and departure times.
While these changes would undoubtedly improve road safety around the school, they would go nowhere towards creating a "quieter neighbourhood", even in the small area shown on the map. But the Wolves Lane QN as previously shown on Council maps extended all the way to Green Lanes. So what about the western part of the QN and what will be done about the constant stream of rat running traffic along Tottenhall Road? Cars coming from Wood Green along Wolves Lane turn into Tottenhall Road by the Bird in Hand and head for the Great Cambridge Road, running at high speed along the one-way Ostliffe Road (making life unpleasant for bus passengers using the Ostliffe Road stop) or driving along Pasteur Gardens.
The existence of these rat running problems was acknowledged by Enfield Council in an earlier consultation (December 2013), which suggested putting barriers across Pasteur Gardens and Chequers Way, but this was never implemented.
The original Mini Holland bid proposals, which won Enfield funding from Transport for London, included the proposal for "residential cells", which were subsequently renamed Quieter Neighbourhoods. In the document the council stated that "Our goal is to remove through traffic from these residential streets, so that only residents access these areas." These proposals certainly wouldn't achieve that - these wolves are not just lacking in teeth, in fact the wolves are missing altogether from the "Wolves Lane Quieter Neighbourhood"!
The deadline for responding to the public consultation is 15 October 2017.
