Streatham Wells LTN Post Reply

[LTN HELL]

Due to the lunacy that is Lambeth Council they have introduced an area of Low Traffic in a large residential area behind Streatham High Road. As a result travelling through Streatham is now utter hell. Lambeth implemented this scheme with little or no thought and to the huge implications it is having. The High Road is now gridlock and the air quality appalling. Although they claim the scheme is environmental?!

People within the zone loathe it. Tradesmen won’t go in the zone, delivery drivers are boycotting it and Ubers can’t go into the area either. A quiet area is now desolate hence higher crime and the traffic is forced onto an already congested High Road.

I have heard horror stories about how this is impacting on people’s lives. If you are stuck in gridlock, your children sit on a bus going to school and are continually late to school or home, your children miss breakfast clubs or cannot stay for extra curricular lessons, you have witnessed erratic and dangerous driving due to sheer frustration. Please do email Clare Holland or Rezina Chowdhury at Lambeth and voice your experience. There is a group lobbying against this but more people need to speak up.

Even if you are not a Streatham resident it may well still be impacting you.

There is also a petition to Reverse the LTN which is on the Lambeth Council website which needs to be signed by 7/12/23 so please do so. In spite of everyone’s frustration not enough people have signed.

Lambeth spent millions enforcing this scheme as it generates money in fines. That is the sole reason for its introduction.

[NO LTN in Streatham]

In addition to the above. If you live in Wandsworth or Clapham and your children are at Dulwich or Croydon schools this will no doubt be impacting on their journey to school. Also indeed yours when you have to go to the school. Children are taking up to an hour to drive from Streatham and Clapham Junior School to Streatham Common on the School Bus so from further afield it will be unavoidable. Yesterdays train strike just polarised how insane this LTN is.

The area now an LTN was a minor rat run and was only busy at school pick up times. Otherwise traffic was not an issue. I know as I lived there for seven years. With the A23 a main route out of London it needs Valley Road to ease the traffic especially if there is an accident, roadworks or train strike. There needs to be a route to alleviate the traffic off the A23 and now Valley Road the parallel road is closed then the carnage is ensuing.

Please please if you are impacted by this do lobby the Streatham MP or the Leader of Lambeth Council. How this is altering your lives for the worst needs to be voiced.

[Btsmum]

This LTN is really badly thought and the traffic in Stretham is horrible. I live in Balham but go to Cindy’s swimming school at st Joseph college and a 15 mins journey is now a 45 mins one. The air quality is so bad that even in the car my kids and I feel headache. I can’t even think about students waking the street or people living there. I am considering going to another swimming school as the journey is too long. Which is exactly what an LTN as been designed for, reducing the number of cars by discouraging people to come from other parts of London. It won’t encourage people to take public transport in Stretham as they are not good enough, it is not north London with several tubes, Elizabeth line, trains etc, south London had not the infrastructure for people to get there anyway if they do not live there and can use a bus.
The real issue is, there is not enough noise and complaints. There were protests with very few people attending, the number in the petition are too low. There must be loads of people who like it and agree with it. I suspect people living inside the LTN hope for an increase in house prices as it has happened elsewhere, although I am not sure being surrounded by such long queue and traffic and having such a high pollution really will increase the prices.
The other issue is the anti-LTN groups are very very aggressive on social media and they insult anyone who does not think like them, hence it is really hard to understand the view of people who are actually pro-LTN.
For whatever reason, there is not enough critical mass for the council to backtrack.

[readysteadycook]

There was an article in the Times last week showing how buses are really affected by this scheme - an 11 min journey now taking upto 45 Herondale Avenue minutes. So it’s really affecting everyone.

[Kirstie’s Mom]

I’m so sorry . We had one a few years ago . It was a nightmare . Keep protesting and vote the clowncillors out who support these lunatic things .

[Starr]

Has your MP been of any help? Councillors should serve the people and your MP must step in.

[juliantenniscoach]

The LTN's are a nightmare.  They cause the complete opposite of what they are trying to achieve.  Just ask any bus driver.

[Needlework]

Just looked into the Streatham Wells LTN that friends have been complaining about, Have not travelled to Streatham in a few months but seems like it's a no go area since October.

What a nightmare!

Seems your councillors are ideologically wedded to these road closures but don't have a clue about the impact. You should all lobby hard to get these removed ASAP.

Awful waste of money. So sorry for you living there.

[CyclingLondon]

Love an LTN

[Gabriella]

There roads they have closed around Streatham, no going through, are not just Valley Road, but many other roads nearby, where all the cars now are obliged to go via Streatham High Road only , was the most unrealistic project, ever.

The roads, including Valley Road, were built for a reason, not for anything else. A lots of public money have been invested in these road for the purpose of people to drive through.

What are you now doing with these closed blocked to cars road?
Are you going to grow grass on them? Or grow trees on them? Or are they now just gardens for people living in these unused road?
This is utterly wrong, because those road were built for a purpose, which is to use to drive through as a necessity.
Whoever built them, and now long gone, they must think what is wrong with people now, don't they use the brain before taking a decision to do things that will impact badly on people wellbeing?

[empfindlich]

I don't live in the Streatham LTN but I do live on another narrow, residential street which has become a cut through since Waze and other satnavs started directing everyone down residential streets.

It's a nightmare for residents. This street was not built to carry, in our case, nearly 3,000 cars a day. Traffic gets stuck, bikes are driven off roads, parked cars are clipped. There are also several schools on the road and with narrow pavements it's not uncommon to see drivers having to navigate around groups of children walking in the road.

This is having very real effects. In my case my partner, who is sensitive to noise, can no longer use the sitting room, the main bedroom or even sit in the back garden. He's reduced to being in one room with the radio on all day to block out the noise and I often find him in tears in the middle of the day. This was not a problem when the road was a quiet backstreet.

Nobody consulted residents when this scale of traffic started using our road and when a petition was run >90% of residents wanted something done to cut the amount of through traffic that blights the street. If it was any other form of noise pollution there'd be things we could do, but not for this.

I understand people's desire to get where they need to go quickly and to shave a few minutes off their journeys. But I don't understand why the rights of driver are given so much more prominence than those of residents. We live in a city with one of the best public transport networks in the world. If you do drive please give some thought to people living on the roads you drive down.

[nvnvisitor]

Totally agree with the nightmare of this ill thought out LTN. Worth writing to and voting out councillors who put these in - echoing the above sentiments completely. Also we should all request the councils who implement them also do studies into the impact of crime once LTNs are introduced. There is now permanent police presence needed and implemented during LTN operational times in Dulwich Village due to the rise in crime during these times. Crime in Clapham junction has risen a lot since many roads off St John’s Hill have banned car traffic. There must be a correlation somewhere! Bus drivers are now implementing new strikes because of LTNs and traffic created from LTNs making their jobs driving around and sitting in traffic a nightmare as per the news article quoted above too. Also cannot wait to vote out the Mayor of London! Rant over…