Saturday 5 May 2007

Mayford Road SW12 & Pulborough Road SW18

TMO 871 - Received 03 May 2007

The proposal is to remove parking bays in each of these roads to accommodate new vehicle crossovers over footways.

WCC would like your views on this. Should we have a policy of opposing new crossovers?

Possible grounds are:

1. That they increase hazards to cyclists (more vehicles manouvering in and out of driveways)
2. Degrade the envirionment for pedestrians (increased hazards for them and more damage to footway)
and even
3. Effectively 'privatise' what was a generally available parking space by replacing it with yellow lines to allow vehicle access to private parking on the property.

What to you think?

Deadline for comments 21 May 2007

4 comments:

  1. I'm not in favour of cars being allowed to park on gardens if the garden is being concreted over in order to allow this. This is on environmental grounds - what is WBC's policy on this? If car owners want to be granted access across the pavement, removing a parking space from other residents, then they ought to guarantee to only add 'stepping stones' over grass or gravel to park on, to allow water to permeate and not run off into the drainage system, or another equally environmentally friendly solution. If they don't abide by this, access across the pavement should be revoked. Slightly off-topic, I know, but it's something I feel strongly about.

    Bryony

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  2. I agree with Bryony - my first objection is on environmental grounds for the reasons she states.
    It is also unfair, as Mike notes, effectively to privatise a parking space - I am guessing that parking permits are required for the area, so this removes a space from those who are paying for it.
    Personally speaking, the impact on pedestrians and cyclists would be at the bottom of my list, though still relevant. I'm not sure how far away from cycling issues that WCC wants to spend its time, but if objections are made on WCC's behalf, I won't object!

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  3. I agree with all the comments about the environmental need not to concrete over front gardens and also doubt whether it's a cycle-specific issue. I'm only familiar with May ford Road. It's useful cycle route through to Nightingale Road avoiding the traffic lights on the crossroads with Bolingbroke Grove. It's very narrow between the parked cars and the bends are risky as drivers also use it as a cut through. If the council were to have a policy of no on-road parking and restrict through motor traffic we would have a very nice cycle route. This would make it a more pleasant place for residents as long as they have to use environmentally friendly surfacing for parking. This might also have the add-on effect of reducing the number of cars each household can realistically own? I'm not sure on this one as some are flats so maybe this is going too far.

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  4. Thanks for all the comments.

    Crossovers were discussed at the WCC meeting on Tuesday and it was decided that this was not really within the remit of the cycling campaign.

    WCC will therefore not make any comments on this proposal.

    If anyone would like to comment in a private capacity, for any of the excellent reasons given above then the contact details are given in a separate posting on this blog......

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