Congratulations to Highgate & Dartmouth Park residents
Residents' sensible and organized objections to the consultation on an overreaching Healthy Neighbourhood traffic scheme have prevailed and Camden Highways Officers have gone back to the drawing board.
Your local Conservative team recognized this as the wrong solution to a problem that, in large part, does not exist and met with you in considerable numbers to advise on the best methods of opposition. We were very happy to have been able to help when Andrew Boff (Chairman of the London Authority) came to meet residents in October (CNJ report here)
There are remaining problems in Dartmouth Park, with the heaviest being the heavy traffic on Chetwynd Road. However, drawing an arbitrary line all around your residential area and stopping all through traffic would have made your lives far more complicated, potentially making access to the Whittington Hospital harder and, for those on the boundaries, delivering far worse conditions due to denser traffic and resultant air pollution. The CNJ was awash with correspondence - letters like this echoed the anger felt locally.
We hope that any new proposal respects the wishes of the local residents and is not purely contrived by Camden Labour to alter the movement patterns of those outside the borough.
We will be keeping a lookout for any new consultations, and please let us know if you would like to discuss this further.
Well done again.
This weeks 'Camden New Journal' reported
'Dartmouth Park traffic plan halted for a rethink'
The proposed Low Traffic Neighbourhood for Dartmouth Park is “going back to the drawing board” following objections, writes Frankie Lister-Fell. This week, the council stated it would rethink it proposal to make the Dartmouth Park area a “healthy neighbourhood” and introduce restrictions on motor vehicles.
There was strong opposition from local people. Leader of the council Richard Olszewski said: “Here in Camden, we always listen to people who live, work and travel in an area when we suggest changes. “Because of the feelings and observations you shared, we are going back to the drawing board. We will take this opportunity to revisit our ideas for the area within the three-year Transport Strategy delivery plan. “This Delivery Plan will invest more than £22m in ambitious schemes for active travel, public transport and high streets across the borough. We remain committed to investing to tackle the problems our initial proposal sought to address, and we hope that residents will continue to work with us so that we can make the areas around Dartmouth Park better for local people.”
Last summer, the council announced a “co-design phase” to gather feedback from residents about the proposals. The feedback was “extensive”, and almost 700 people attended online and in-person events to share their views. Green Party councillor Lorna Jane Russell said: “The community feeling is clear: this pause is a sensible decision and welcome news, and I’m pleased common sense has prevailed. “As a Green Party councillor, I do want to see improved measures to improve traffic and pollution in our area and to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety. “I will therefor be staying close to the process to ensure that we can achieve these ambitions with a scaled-back plan that is better suited to the area and reflects the community’s diverse needs.” A report of the “co-design phase” will be available in the Spring. '
