Forum Topic

Report on Church St. to IBAF

If you feel in need of a real laugh may I suggest you read the report into the Church St. closure that is going to tonight's meeting of the I&B Area Forum. The consultants have concluded that bus journey timing hasn't been affected. The report also goes on about the impact on North St. - which entirely misses the impact on the rest of the area. This is patent nonsense as many of us who live around here can testify, amazing how you can get the results you want to justify your stupid decision when you pay enough isn't it?

Vanessa Smith ● 3445d14 Comments

My school run is at least 6 miles of walking each weekday. Is this considered walkable? I hate driving, and am unable to get on local buses (267) due to severe overcrowding. Kids are also forced to walk 3 miles, and it is not always doable for them.One quick way to reduce number of cars, thus lowering pollution and congestion, would be do ask TFL to increase frequency on 267 route. As someone mentioned on a different thread, Isleworth is a "public transport wasteland"! Just simply asking people to give up cars is not going to work, there should be alternatives.

Marina Thomas ● 3444d

School trips which cannot be avoided using alternative methods might be those where a parent drops off a child on their way to work?Or those where the school is not easily accessible by public transport and is further than walking distance?For some reason which I can never truly understand, we are allowed to drive to Tesco, or to work, but driving a child to or from school is considered somehow reprehensible.

Topher Martyn ● 3444d

From reports on Facebook I gather Cllr. Mayne rubbished everything that objectors to the closure had said, this is a link to the recording. To say the 'don't close church st' campaigners are furious is an understatement.https://m.soundcloud.com/sheetal-shah-861859435/ibaf-03032016

Vanessa Smith ● 3444d

Did anyone manage to attend last night?

Paul Fisher ● 3444d

" I avoid driving down there in commuter chaos, yet our children cannot do so because of going to school."It would be interesting to know which school trips by driving cannot be avoided by using alternative methods.I note that "Beat the Street - Isleworth" is currently in progress https://hounslow.beatthestreet.me/UserPortal/Isleworthwith Isleworth Town Primary School currently heading up both leaderboards.

Tim Henderson ● 3445d

Apart from thinking we're all stupid and can't see through this farce, yet another dodgy manoeuvre by frustrated drivers has been noted. You will remember the really daft decision to shorten the median strip at the junction of Twickenham Rd. and Dawes Avenue which led to drivers dodging the wrong side of the strip into the path of oncoming traffic to get down Dawes and on to Worple Ave and Rd. The response from Hounslow was CCTV to fine offenders, a nice little earner for the council. Now apparently drivers are circumventing that ploy and going to the end of the median strip and doing a r/h U-turn back down the short stretch of Twickenham Rd. and into Dawes Avenue that way. Of course there are no - 'No U Turn' signs there so technically they aren't doing anything wrong, but how much more dangerous can this road get? When will the powers that be get it through their dim-witted heads that traffic management is what's needed NOT closing roads and aggravating traffic even more?

Vanessa Smith ● 3445d

....best leave the roads and cars alone and just accept that the houses are in the wrong place ...

Sarah Felstead ● 3445d

So the next step is to ban people parking outside their houses on St Johns road and to make that a through way to pick up the extra cars past the hospital?  Those cars do get in the way, especially the ones near the roundabout at the bottom ....Another short cut feeling the added pressure of closure of Church Road is the left turn on London Road before you get to St Johns road onto Linkfield Road which gives cut throughs via Loring road, Castle road, Newton road, Nottingham road and Grainger road onto the new super cut through of St Johns!

Sarah Felstead ● 3445d

Council is re-consulting North street from tomorrow with the view of closing it, too. According to LBH's own assessment, impact on congestion from Church st. closure is around 125%. North street closure impact is 426%, if I remember correctly.Also the impact on the air we breathe is horrendous http://www.getwestlondon.co.uk/news/west-london-news/controversial-road-closure-blamed-spike-10957772

Marina Thomas ● 3445d

Thanks for the link, Adam.  The queue along past the hospital is significantly more difficult to negotiate and drivers are looking for short cuts, and are taking them, in order to avoid the long queue.  I don't really see anything about that in the report.  The increase in traffic on North street is probably a part of it though.  The speed that drivers use when 'cleverly' finding other routes ( foot to the floor) means all the small Victorian streets and schools are in serious danger.  Calm side streets are now fast routes to get around the blockage since Church street was closed.  Trying to get out of the side streets onto the main roads is a nightmare because of this style of driving.  I avoid driving down there in commuter chaos, yet our children cannot do so because of going to school.

Sarah Felstead ● 3445d

It's available at the link below Sarah :http://democraticservices.hounslow.gov.uk/documents/s123546/Church%20Street%20Trial%20Closure%20-%20Initial%20Impact%20Analysis%20Note%20-%20Jan%202016.pdfAside from querying the appropriateness of using North Street as the point where the statistics have been collected, even those stats seem to clearly point in an significant increase of traffic.However, what really peeves me off is that the 267 stats are based on comparing February 2016 data with November 2015 and November 2014 data.  If I submitted a planning application accompanied by a transport statement my Team would be told (although we wouldn't need to be because we know to avoid such times when doing surveys) that the transport statement shouldn't be done in February because of how half term holidays distort the figures.  Yet, conveniently in this case, LBH has decided to use February statistics...I wonder why ?.

Adam Beamish ● 3445d

Can you give a link to the report, please?

Sarah Felstead ● 3445d

What I have noticed recently is that the local Labour HQ also known as the South Street Cafe is now starting to have a little moan about the closure decisionThey had best be careful or they will be out of the running to run the touted Redlees Park cafe

Paul Fisher ● 3445d

I can already predict 12 yawning councillors all wishing the pesky residents would just leave them alone so they could move on to a bit of back slapping about how well they think they are serving the residents of this Borough

Paul Fisher ● 3445d