Much to discuss at Palmers Green ward's first forum for 22 months

The first PG ward forum for 22 months - with no notice!

The first Palmers Green ward forum since January 2020 was held on Tuesday 23rd November at the Ruth Winston Centre. All three councillors and fifteen or so residents turned out for informative and at times impassioned discussions of pretty much the same issues as last time. Unfortunately, there was little sign of progress on any of them, but I think that residents, councillors and the council officer present all left the meeting with clearer understanding of the problems and some idea of how they might be tackled.

Fifteen people is a very low proportion of the ward's residents, but it was actually pretty remarkable that there were that many there, considering that the ward councillors had not sent out their usual email (normally sent out less than a week and sometime only two days in advance). I found out the day before when someone posted the information on a WhatsApp group that there was to be "a meeting about the Hazelwood school street" - information that he had come across on another WhatsApp group, but how it got there is unclear. The fact that the meeting was to be at Ruth Winston suggested to me that it was a ward forum, so I checked on the council website. Sure enough, it was the first ward forum for a very long time and the "agenda" turned out to be a blank page. (And there was no information about the school street, other than to confirm that there would be one.)

In my view, it's simply unacceptable to give no proper notice of the meeting. It's also very poor to have had no meeting for 22 months when councillors in neighbouring wards have managed to hold two or three since the pandemic broke out, some online, others face-to-face, with adequate notice and, in some cases, with quite detailed minutes. The councillors did not apologise for either of these failings.

Could I suggest that all ward residents email the three councillors complaining about this and requesting a fortnight's notice of future meetings? You could also ask to be added to the email list used (or in the this case, not used) for the meetings.

Police Safer Neighbourhoods Team report

The main topic discussed, at some length, was what the police called a "major drug issue" in PG ward. Residents of some streets confirmed that dealing, sometimes "blatant" was a matter of concern. Families were concerned about their children and some were moving house because of the drug dealing. The police said that extra resources would be brought in in the near future.

The police had not received any reports of problems arising from the new Merkur Slots arcade.

The trial one-way system in Osborne Road, Windsor Road, Lightcliffe Road and New River Crescent

David Taylor, head of traffic and transportation, reported on this item and all the later items.

He said that the one-way system (phase 1 of the larger Connaught Gardens Quieter Neighbourhood scheme) had not yet been made permanent and a decision was likely between January and March.

Several residents of Osborne Road mentioned problems caused by the fact that the westernmost end of the road is two-way, to allow access to on-street parking and loading bays. Drivers are entering the road from Green Lanes, unaware that that most of the street is one-way in the opposite direction, leading them to make three-point turns, which when the vehicle is a lorry involves encroaching onto the pavement. There are occasions when lorries block the pavement and cycle lane in Green Lanes and restrict sightlines - this has already resulted in a pedestrian being hit on the nearby zebra crossing. Some drivers, looking for parking further down Osborne Road, will drive in the wrong direction at high speed to reach them - sometimes in reverse gear. The consensus of the meeting was that the whole of the street should be one-way.

David Taylor was unsure whether it would be possible to make the whole of Osborne Road one-way without first removing the entire phase 1 scheme and starting over, but said he would "take it away".

From the discussion, it appeared that the westernmost end of the street was left two-way at the request of business owners, so that their customers can park there. David Taylor said that "businesses are not able to dictate".

Rat-running in Connaught Gardens, Hazelwood Lane, Callard Avenue and Chimes Avenue

David Taylor reported that only 350 responses to last year's initial consultation on the Connaught Gardens Quieter Neighbourhood were received, which was "disappointing". He said that work on the design to a take account of feedback is being carried out - one particular problem is maintaining access to the petrol station at the junction of Oakthorpe Road and the North Circular, but he was confident that a solution will be found.

He said that a bid for funding from TfL has been submitted and expected to hear whether or not it is successful in March.

During the ensuing discussion residents from the bottom end of Hazelwood Lane and nearby streets affected by rat-running expressed their frustration at the lack of action after four consultations over several years. High-speed turns from Connaught Gardens into Hazelwood Lane and then into Chimes Avenue or Callard Avenue are frightening people and preventing children walking to school, rat-runners colliding with parked cars or going into people's front gardens. They said that the problem is now worse than it was before the pandemic and it's only a matter of time before there is a fatality.

A resident said that the council had never responded to his questions about why, after discontented drivers had removed the width restriction barrier on the Hazelwood Lane bridge shortly after it was installed, it had not been reinstalled.

People asked whether it was possible to put in place some urgent measures to slow down traffic in Connaught Gardens and Hazelwood Lane and use bollards to make high-speed turns difficult without waiting for the complete solution to be funded.There was a suggestion that one cause of delay in tackling the problems was the proposal for an LTN scheme for the entire Quieter Neighbourhood area and that the Connaught Gardens rat-running issue should be "decoupled" from the wider LTN proposals. David Taylor said he would investigate the possibility of paying for this from the council's own funds, eg its capital budget or the money from fines incurred by drivers who ignore No Motor Vehicle signs.

(Comment: The income from fines will dry up if the Fox Lane and Bowes LTNs are discontinued, as some people at the meeting desired. If they are made permanent, changes in driver (mis)behaviour mean that it is likely to diminish. It seems unlikely to me that the LTN proposals have delayed the scheme. The main problem is probably the financial emergency facing Transport for London, which has severely cut back funding of borough LTN and liveable neighbourhood schemes. If it were not for this crisis, the Connaught Gardens scheme would probably have made significant progress by now. If the government does not agree to a satisfactory post-pandemic longer-term funding solution for TfL, as opposed to six-month rescue packages agreed at the last minute, TfL will be forced to cancel all such schemes, not to mention making drastic cuts to tube and bus services, investment in new trains and signalling, and cutting back expenditure on road maintenance.)

Proposals for a controlled parking zone in Osborne Road

David Taylor said that the council was planning to consult residents of a larger area, not just Osborne Road, probably in January. One Osborne Road resident, a long-term campaigner for a CPZ, expressed her annoyance that the council was proposing to make permits available to businesses in Green Lanes and residents in the flats above them. In Devonshire Road, by contrast, only residents of the street itself qualified for parking permits.

The Fox Lane LTN

Asked about the Fox Lane LTN, David Taylor said that a decision about the scheme would be taken by March, when the experimental traffic order will expire. In reply to question about whether the number of consultation respondees for and against would be decisive, he said that when considering responses the validity of issues raised would be of more interest than the number of people raising them.