March 2021 – Survey deadline and 456 Bus Route Update
WHRA Members and residents survey
Many thanks to so many of you who filled out the survey and gave us your thoughts on the issues we highlighted. It looks like in general that we are in agreement with the members and residents on the issues that matter and our approach to these.
If you haven’t already done the survey please could you do so as soon as possible, the survey will close on the 31st March and we will then publish a summary of the findings and some of the ideas and concerns that people have raised both in defence and in opposition to many initiatives locally.
Please click on the link here or on the image below to go to a Google Survey, it should take less than 10 minutes to complete. There is scope with every question for you to expand on your answer if you so wish and we encourage you to let us know your own personal views on the issues and bring to our attention other issues that are important to you.
We aim to represent the views of the residents as best we can and deliver the changes that the community is looking for so we hope that you can take the time to help us do this by filling in the survey.
456 Bus Route Update
The bus route started on the13th March and currently they are using temporary bus stops while they carry on assessing the location and format of the bus stops. We hope that they are still considering the submission we made to them with alternatives to the siting and design of many of the bus stops in our area.
There are however two key developments that have been communicated recently and the first is the decision to remove the planned stops at the bottom of Station Road. This was no doubt in response to local opposition that we think rightly pointed out the issues in terms of the exact locations they were planning and the difficulty of stopping in this part of Station Road. The letter outlining this decision can be seen here.
The second development is the reworked plans for the Farm Road stops and a considerable reduction in the length of the yellow lines and changes to their location. We think this is a very sensible way forward and the best outcome that we could have hoped for based on the route using Farm Road. The yellow lines are generally being used over existing drives to create a series of pulls ins rather than one continuous lane nearest the school on the left as you come towards the bridge in Farm Road. There is a page on the Enfield website with access to all the documentation relating to the plans in Farm Road for the bus stop and yellow lines which you can access here or you can simply view a plan of the original yellow line proposals here and the revised yellow line proposals here.
We await further clarification from the council on the placement of the bus stops and perhaps by using the temporary stops many of which aren’t in the more controversial locations outside people’s homes they may be able to test how these alternative sites work before agreeing on permanent bus stops.
It is too early to say how the route is going however anecdotally there seems to be relatively few people using it (though perhaps not surprising currently), often three people or less on the bus. There are also clearly issues with even the relatively small size bus they are using, in particular in the run up to the bridge as you can see below. Many people were concerned about this and it is something TFL may need to look at again – we shall wait for further communication from the council in due course as to the next steps.
