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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

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


Bus Prioritisation Scheme on Green Lanes

 

 

This isn’t in our area but we thought you would still be interested to hear about a campaign that we would like to support to stop Enfield and TFL’s proposal to make the bus lane in Green Lanes 7am to 7pm instead of 4pm to 7pm.

This is the bus lane that runs in the last section of Green Lanes before the North Circular, travelling north from Lascotts Road to the junction with the North Circular. The affect of this would be to lose 18 pay and display spaces that shoppers can use to visit the shops up until 4pm. These spaces are a lifeline to the shops and without these they fear for their future.

The deadline for the consultation is 13th December 2021 so if you would like to sign the petition you can do so here.

Please also feedback via the Enfield consultation website here: https://letstalk.enfield.gov.uk/bus-priority-scheme

 

 


AGM Minutes and associated documents

Post-AGM Roundup

 

Many thanks to the many people who attended the AGM. We are sorry for the delay in publishing the minutes but they are now but is now available as a pdf on the website by clicking here. Also available is the agenda that you can access here. The changes to the constitution that we passed can be viewed here and the map showing the boundary changes that were proposed and passed as part of the constitution changes which can be viewed here.

We mention the survey we did earlier this year at the meeting in relation to the position we take on a number of issues, if you would like to see the results of this survey, then please take a look at the report here.

We are planning to have a further meeting in the first couple of months of 2022 as we know that many people welcome the opportunity to discuss issues and ideas in this kind of forum as well as the chance to talk to the councillors and MP if available. We will update you on the date shortly.

 

We would like to say a big thank to Paul at Mostons the accountants on the Green for certifying our accounts. Please consider using them if you need an accountant!

 


The Enfield Draft Local Plan

The Enfield Draft Local Plan

Enfield have drawn up a draft local plan for consultation. The plan aims to consider the likely places and types of development that Enfield will have to consider over the next twenty years for building the homes that the increased population in Enfield will need and the Government will require. This plan has caused a great deal of outrage across the borough in particular because it proposes major developments that encroach on the Green Belt and development of a number of sites across the borough that are controversial. There are currently three such sites in our local area, Sainsburys (turning the car park and possibly the wooded area into space for flats), Ford’s Grove Car Park (to be developed) and Firs Farm Wetlands (which they propose as a possible site for a crematorium on the car park and adjacent football field).

The WHRA has put together a response to this document covering our objection to development on Green Belt land in the borough and specifically highlighting our objections to development on the three sites locally. You can view the document by clicking the image below.