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Dear resident

Following your Bowes ward councillors’ repeated representations to the Deputy Mayor for Transport (Isabel Derdring) and other Transport for London representatives, we have just received TfL officer Nigel Hardy to negotiate solutions to the unacceptable traffic congestion faced by residents of Warwick Road.

TfL is unwilling to reintroduce the right turn from the North Circular Road into Brownlow Road, which is currently banned for all vehicles apart from buses. TfL point out that banning the turn is the only way that they have been able to provide safe pedestrian crossings across all arms of the junction without causing long queues and delays.

On the other hand, TfL is willing in principle to consider, on an experimental basis, the option that the community chose as the “least bad” solution at the large consultation which your councillors organised last autumn – namely banning the right turn onto the North Circular Road by cars travelling northwards on Warwick Road. Please remember that this measure (combined with a banned left turn onto Brownlow Road by cars travelling eastwards on York Road) is meant to dissuade so-called “rat-runners” from using your residential streets as a shortcut onto the North Circular Road – with studies commissioned by your Council having discovered that this category of traffic accounts for 50% of all volumes in the area.

By end of March Enfield Council will have submitted to TfL an impact assessment indicating the effects of these changes on other roads in the area. However, before agreeing to the scheme, TfL will need to review the information we provide and satisfy themselves that it won’t have a serious impact on either the North Circular Road or local bus services.

Please note that one more obstacle remains to the implementation of this trial, namely Haringey Council’s concerns about the effects of the changes for traffic on the streets it manages – particularly Maidstone Road. As always, we will continue to keep residents informed as things evolve.

Please feel free to contact your councillors or by attending the surgeries we run every Saturday 10.30am at Trinity at Bowes Church on Palmerston Road.

Yours sincerely

Bowes ward councillors

Achilleas Georgiou

Yasemin Brett

Alan Sitkin

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Comment by Matthew Kitching on April 26, 2016 at 21:11: The post is on the Bowes Labour website however there isn't any detail. I put a couple of FoI requests in to the council to find out what was proposed. Here is an extract (letter dated April): "The council is proposing to consult on a proposal which a) bans the right turn from Warwick Road onto the North Circular Road; and b) introduces a point No Entry in York Road, east of the junction with Natal Road (to prevent eastbound traffic accessing Brownlow Road via York Road).
The consultation is programmed to commence later this month and the outcome of the consultation will determine whether or not the scheme proceeds. The consultation will be on the basis that the scheme will be a permanent change rather than a trial, although this does not mean that the scheme could not be modified or removed at a later date."

The council has certainly listened to residents by combining a solution for Warwick with a solution for York. Nevertheless the proposal depends on a successful consultation and opinion may be divided.

Comment by Matthew Kitching on October 5, 2016 at 21:13: A letter from Enfield Council received today confirms that the proposal to ban the right turn from Warwick Road onto the North Circular has been rejected by a large majority of the local residents who responded. The main objections given were:

Lack of a convenient alternative route for residents affected by the banned right-turn

Concern that the problem was simply being relocated onto Brownlow Road.

The council conducted their own assessment and concluded that the introduction of a right turn ban would lead to additional traffic on Brownlow Road, which is already congested at peak times.

Comment by Liz Wright on February 1, 2017 at 17:10: Hopefully residents (or at least the reps of key roads involved) will be given access to the traffic monitoring information that is currently being gathered in this area by LBE - or maybe Matthew could make an FoI request again.

Comment by Liz Wright on February 2, 2017 at 8:55: Is anyone interested in meeting to explore community based options to the traffic situation in this area which could then be presented to LBE. As this thread shows discussions have been ongoing since at least 2014 but possibly driven by residents protecting individual roads rather than exploring the bigger picture.

Comment by Angie on February 2, 2017 at 10:40: Yes, I am very interested. I think taking a 'bigger picture' approach regarding the problems for the whole area sounds very sensible. There is a community group in Warwick Road who meet regularly - does anyone have their contact details so I can reach out to them in this regard?

Comment by Matthew Kitching on February 5, 2017 at 21:36: Liz, count me in if you can arrange a meeting please. I agree that the problems are wider than the immediate area, discussing the impact on individual roads isn't going to solve the problem. One challenge is that in this area Enfield, TfL and Haringey are all stakeholders.

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