Yesterday I went along to a free training event organised by Living Streets, Campaign for Better Transport and CTC. I was only able to go in the afternoon but I found the workshops really useful and above all it was a good chance to talk to people who were bringing about change in their local neighbourhoods.
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Responses to this consultation must be received by Friday 14th March. As part of London Living Streets’ Green Man Campaign we support this proposal to give pedestrians greater priority while crossing this important junction.
From the consultation document:
Transport for London (TfL) is holding a consultation exercise to receive residents and key Stakeholders’ comments regarding pedestrian improvements at Windsor Castle Junction. As part of our work to promote walking by delivering better conditions for pedestrians in London we are planning to upgrade facilities for pedestrians at the junction. There are a number of schools in the area and the current amenities do not allow pedestrians to cross safely on all arms of the junction. It is anticipated that by providing safer crossings we can encourage more people to use alternatives to their cars.
Download the full consultation document and reply form here:
A232 Windsor Castle Junction pedestrian improvements consultation (PDF, 5.6 MB)
Planning Alerts is a free service that sends you email notices about planning applications near you.
This is easier than hunting through the council’s website as that information is not grouped by locality, so you have to hunt through the entire borough’s applications to find ones near you.
Planning Alerts works for many boroughs, currently including Sutton and Croydon, but not Merton.
If you use an RSS reader, this information is also available as an RSS feed.
Following last week’s serious accident in which a three-year-old girl was knocked down on a traffic island, Living Streets Sutton members are calling for improvements to Stonecot Hill’s crossings.
What needs to be fixed?
The Sutton Guardian has a happy report that people from Benhill Estate in central Sutton have been cleaning up their neighbourhood. They’ve painted out the graffiti, picked up the litter, coralled the wayward shopping trolleys and had the abandoned and untaxed cars cuffed and stuffed. So a big thumbs up goes to the hardworking Benhill folk, to the police’s Sutton Central Safer Neighbourhood Team and to B&Q for providing tools and materials. (In the future, we’ll all be sponsored for fifteen minutes.)
I’ve long considered that Transport for London‘s street fault reporting system is a wonderful example of how to discourage public participation through bad design.
By filling out a form on TfL’s website or phoning their call centre, you can let them know about a street problem that needs to be fixed. The hope and expectation is that they’ll do so with appropriate haste and keep you informed as they do so.
One of its fundamental flaws is that if the reporter wants to track the progress of the fault, they must keep returning to the website and enter the lengthy fault code to see its status. If someone has gone to the trouble of reporting a fault, it’s likely that they care about it getting fixed. Providing a simple mechanism for keeping the reporter notified without making them do any extra work is the least the system should do as a “reward” for the reporter’s efforts. As Lynne Truss would say, “Why am I the One Doing This?”
I can think of four ways to notify the reporter when a fault’s status changes; two that are obvious, two less so.
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Congratulations go to the “Monday Marchers” who are celebrating one year of walking towards better health, led by Sutton and Merton Primary Care Trust.
Regular exercise is important for everyone to maintain good health and especially important for people with diabetes so that they can avoid serious complications to their condition.
If you’d like to join the Monday walk in Morden Hall Park, contact Sarah Wheatley by email at sarah.wheatley@smpct.nhs.uk or phone 020 8251 0511. Everyone from Sutton and Merton is welcome, including people without diabetes.
Living Streets promotes everyday walking as part of a healthy lifestyle for everyone by campaigning for cleaner, safer streets and more shops and local facilities in walking distance of home.
Sutton Living Streets 