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Winchmore Hill Residents Association is a non-political group run by residents, who seek to protect the quality of life in Winchmore Hill, now and for future generations

Recent News

Moped Parking on the Green

The dining on the Green scheme as of January has been made permanent. We were always supportive of the scheme and we know it is very popular but there is unquestionably an imbalance between the benefits of the scheme for those businesses who offer food and are well positioned to have outdoor seating and those that are non-food related or not able to offer outdoor seating and of course residents who live above the shops and near the Green.

We have been pushing for changes to the plan when and if it was made permanent as the current design allows for and encourages mopeds to ride on the pavement and for cars to park at both ends of the Green to pick up from Going Greek and from Hopper and Bean. This emboldens people to park on Hoppers Road itself where the bus needs to stop to pick up and drop off passengers and unbelievably actually on the grass on the Green on occasions!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There have been changes put forward by Enfield which they plan to implement now the scheme has been made permanent, most of which we agree with, you can click here to see a pdf including the plans and our feedback on these changes.

What we want to draw your attention to one of the major issues that we have with the scheme and development of the delivery business by Going Greek; which is the mopeds. The sheer volume of orders that Going Greek has been able to build and maintain since the lockdown coming in from 12 noon to 11pm necessitates an army of mopeds which we are sure you have all seen who sit outside Mistress Appleby and have completely killed the trade the shop had before this scheme was implemented. They ride across the pavement and park indiscriminately in this area.

The new plan considered moving the place where they would be allowed to park to outside Fullers, we opposed that on the basis that it wasn’t fair on Fullers to have the mopeds in front their premises. The other option that is now being put forward is on the cobbles at the top of the Green as shown below.

We also oppose this as this is a heritage space and in front of the trough that we believe will end up as an ashtray. There should be a space allocated for motorcycles in the section of new pay and display parking (this will replace the residents parking in the slip road running to the roundabout by the King’s Head from Broad Walk) that you can see above where the black mini is parked.

This has been made clear to the council but they are reluctant to consider this presumably as they would lose a pay and display space but we want to put pressure on them to do this and we will be asking for the help of all of our members if they agree with us that this is the right place for the mopeds to be.

 

If we don’t do this then I think we will always regret not trying harder to have changed Enfield’s mind and part of the appeal of the Green and the way it looks will be changed forever.

Please fill in the Google form survey by clicking on the image below to oppose the idea of moving the mopeds to the cobbles at the top of the Green and persuade Enfield they should have their own parking spot in the pay and display parking.

SAY NO TO MOPEDS ON THE COBBLES

Please also if you can express your opposition to some or all of the people below, this will create a clear voice to the people directly involved, their seniors and others at Enfield whose attention should be brought to this issue:

Matthew Davies (Senior Traffic and Transportation Engineer managing the changes to the Green)
matthew.davies@enfield.gov.uk

David Taylor (Head of Traffic and Transportation)
David.B.Taylor@enfield.gov.uk

David Morris (Parking Services Manager)
david.morris@enfield.gov.uk

Doug Wilkinson (Director of Environment and Operations)
doug.wilkinson@enfield.gov.uk

Ian Davies (Chief Executive)
chief.executive@enfield.gov.uk

Sarah Cary (Executive Director Place)
sarah.cary@enfield.gov.uk

 



New committee members needed

We are looking for a couple of new members to join the committee and they would be voted on at the next general meeting.

Planning representative – Please get in touch with us if you would like to help by evaluating planning applications that are likely to have a major impact on our area and working with residents on any specific planning concerns.

Crime representative  – We think it is important to have someone who can monitor crime in the area and think about initiatives that we can lead on to reduce crime. If you feel you could make a difference by coming on board with this role please get in touch.

Transport Users representative – We feel Winchmore Hill should have a voice in terms of the train service and also bus service in the area. There are passenger groups that meet with the train operators in particular and would be very beneficial to have a local train user attending and speaking up for the residents where need be. If you take the train and the recent reduction in service is something you would like to see reversed soon then please get in touch.

Environment representative – A group has been started to look at improving the open space and the green areas of Winchmore HIll but we would like someone to lead this. There would lots of support available both from the committee and from volunteers already keen to help out with things like litter picking or plans to plant up unloved areas locally. Please get in touch if this is something that you feel passionate about.

If you would like to put yourself forward for any of these roles then please contact us at info@whresidents.org or via the contact form on the website which you can go to by clicking here.


Fox Lane Update

The Fox Lane report by the council was published recently and we understand Enfield council have already made their intention clear for the scheme to become permanent. The piece below is a summary of the report by our President and Transport representative on the committee Robert Taylor. It was written before the council declared that they intend to make the scheme permanent earlier this week.

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The latest news is that the Council officers’ report  about this traffic scheme has been published. Council Leader, Cllr Nesil Calliskan, will soon take a decision whether to approve this report’s main recommendation, that this LTN scheme should be made permanent.

She has recently approved making permanent a similar LTN scheme for the Bowes area. So, it’s extremely unlikely she will do anything other than decide that the Fox Lane LTN should also be made permanent.

It is quite likely that the Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee will then get the opportunity to decide what happens next. It could ratify her decision, or it could refer it back to the Council for further consideration. As this committee has a majority of Labour councillors, it’s almost certain that it will approve the scheme.

So, what’s in this 497 page report?

Paragraph 4 of the reports says, “Taking into account the various matters set out in this report, it is considered that the factors in favour of making the experimental traffic orders permanent outweigh the disbenefits and/or disadvantages of removing the trial.”

Paragraph 6 sets out some measures that might be carries out to mitigate some of the effects of the scheme. These include minor changes at Southgate Circus and possibly a major reconstruction of this junction, but only if funding for this could be obtained from Transport for London.

Investigations could be carried out into removing the existing restriction on most traffic travelling throughout the length of The Medway, or for it to operate only during certain hours of the day.

The report also states that the traffic speeds on The Bourne in the morning peak period have decreased from 29 mph to 17 mph, which is likely the result of congestion at Southgate Circus.

Also interesting is what’s not in this report. There are no details of anything that was written in 2755 e-mails that were received before July 2021 – because demographic information was not available about the writers. A further 1315 emails were received after date but none of the information in them was used either. The report only looks at the comments on the on-line survey, despite residents having been informed by the Council that they could also submit their views by e-mail.

Worst of all the objections submitted by WHRA is not included in the list of submission from local organisations.

The comments that were looked at were only analysed in order to produce lists of the numbers of people who liked or disliked various features and effects the scheme. There were no figures for the numbers of people who were actually in favour of the retention of the whole scheme or how many people wanted it removed.

The jiggery pokery that went on in relation to traffic counts was unbelievable. In several instances before and after traffic counts were caried out at different locations in the same road. Some of the counts were done on days last September when traffic flows were known to abnormally low because of long queues at petrol stations.There is photographic evidence that automatic traffic counting equipment was installed on some roads but no counts from these roads for those dates have been included in the report.

All things considered, the Winchmore Hill Residents Association is very dissatisfied and disappointed with this report.

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Robert has also sent a letter on behalf of the association to Enfield to make clear our views on this report and the findings as well as the fact that the WHRA comments were not included or acknowledged in the report.

You can see a pdf copy of this letter here