Posts Tagged ‘newham council’
Greenwich Council: ‘We’ll build our own river crossing’
This truncated road at the end of Barnham Drive, Thamesmead would form part of the approach to any Gallions Reach crossing. Note the world’s worst cycle lane.
Greenwich Council is demanding the power to build a new road bridge at Thamesmead, according to its response to Transport for London’s consultation into river crossings.
As expected, the council is “strongly supporting” the controversial Silvertown Tunnel, which would branch off the A102 just south of the Blackwall Tunnel, as favoured by mayor Boris Johnson but opposed by local residents and the local Labour party.
There’s also no surprise in the council rejecting the mayor’s other proposal – to build a ferry at Gallions Reach, linking Thamesmead with Beckton, instead – and favouring a bridge instead.
But what is interesting is a demand that Greenwich and Newham councils be given the power to build their own bridge if TfL doesn’t build one.
It says: “The Royal Borough is concerned that a new fixed crossing at Gallions Reach should be constructed at the earliest possible opportunity [and] does not accept that a new fixed crossing at Gallions Reach could not be constructed before 2021.
“If TfL is unable to deliver a fixed crossing sooner than 2021 the Mayor should use the powers provided by the GLA Act 1999 (as amended by the GLA Act 2007) to delegate authority to the Royal Borough of Greenwich and Newham Council so as to facilitate that.”
The chances of Boris Johnson approving a bridge at Gallions Reach, to be built by TfL or anyone else, are remote. His political allies at neighbouring Bexley Council are implacably opposed to the idea, and scrapping a previous proposal – the Thames Gateway Bridge – was one of his pledges prior to his election as mayor in 2008.
That said, though, the mayor clashed with Conservative assembly member and Bexley cabinet member Gareth Bacon on the subject in January, an exchange which is worth reading (“I am not ruling it out. I am ruling out the Thames Gateway Bridge. I have ruled that out.”), while he has also acknowledged that a future mayor may take a different view.
Are the two Labour councils trying to offer Tory Boris a way out by offering to build a bridge themselves? It’s an interesting development.
It also deepens the council’s disagreement with Eltham Labour MP Clive Efford, who fears a Gallions Reach bridge would lead to a revival of long-scrapped plans to drive a motorway through Oxleas Woods. The local ward party in Shooters Hill has rejected the council’s campaign.
While a bridge at Gallions Reach may look more attractive compared with the crazy Silvertown proposal, many of the same issues apply. Air pollution is already poor in the area, underneath the London City Airport flightpath, and housing has already been built either side of the proposed approach at Barnham Drive, west Thamesmead.
There’s the additional complication of attracting more traffic to roads which wouldn’t be able to cope with the traffic – notoriously, the main route to the area from Bexleyheath is a side road, Knee Hill.
That said, those issues would also apply to Boris’s ferry proposal – supported by Bexley – which would replace the Woolwich Ferry, mostly used by HGVs.
Another interesting aspect of Greenwich’s response suggests using both crossings to create some kind of circular public transport link between the Royal Docks and the north of the borough, as well as flagging up its pet “DLR on stilts” proposal.
“An analysis of the opportunity to incorporate provision for a DLR extension to the south of the Royal Borough within the Silvertown Tunnel would be welcomed – alongside an analysis of the prospect of creating a circular public transport arrangement that could connect Thamesmead, Beckton, the University of East London campus, City Airport, ExCel, the O2, Ravensbourne College and North Greenwich station, Charlton Riverside, Woolwich Central and the new Crossrail stations utilising new crossing at Silvertown and Gallions Reach,” it says.
No reference to worries about air quality or increased congestion at either Silvertown or Gallions Reach feature in Greenwich’s submission, which records the curiously round figure of 1,200 signatures in support of its three-month long Bridge The Gap campaign, of which 795 were received online, the rest from pre-printed cards supplied to the public. (The No To Silvertown Tunnel petition got 348 in a month.)
It also supports tolling, yet acknowledges that this could send traffic towards Rotherhithe Tunnel and Tower Bridge: “It is essential that any tolling regime introduced is designed such that the World Heritage Site at Greenwich is not detrimentally affected by a potential shift of vehicle movements westwards to the nearest ‘free’ crossings.”
It says there should be “appropriate local traffic mitigation measures to safeguard the World Heritage Site and other residential areas in the proximity of the proposed Silvertown tunnel”, although it does not suggest what these would be.
Read Greenwich Council’s response and report to cabinet member Denise Hyland.
Greenwich Council’s Bridge The Gap campaign runs aground
So, you’re the PR boss of a London borough, earning £125,000 a year. You’ve cooked up a campaign to get a new road tunnel built which is going to lead to even more traffic piling into your already-saturated borough. It’s a controversial one.
Your social media launch had to be pulled, so now you’re now launching it to the mainstream media. You pick a nice riverside location. After all, your borough has London’s longest riverfront.
But you forget to check the tide tables. So when you arrive, it’s low tide…
Perhaps doing it in view of the much-loved Woolwich Ferry, which you’re campaigning to get rid of, probably wasn’t wise either. Oh dear, oh dear…
Next, all you’ll need is your senior councillor admitting not having done any research – but I’ll get to that in a minute.
Sadly, I couldn’t be there, but Greenwich and Newham councils’ launch of their Bridge The Gap campaign on Friday ended up being shared with a protest on the North Woolwich foreshore from Friends of the Earth, Roads To Nowhere and Stop City Airport. If only they’d done it at high tide, eh?
These campaigners are flat out against any new roads, while it must be emphasised the No Silvertown Tunnel petition doesn’t have a view on other crossings, but it’s good to see Greenwich and Newham’s attempt to hijack TfL’s river crossings consultation itself hijacked once again.
Will Greenwich Council now get the message that campaigning for an additional tunnel branching off the A102, attracting more traffic, more jams and more pollution, is suicidal? We’ll have to wait and see, but you can help by signing the petition.
For some strange reason, neither Greenwich’s Dear Leader Chris Roberts nor Newham’s elected mayor Sir Robin Wales bothered to show up, so the gig was left to regeneration cabinet member Denise Hyland and her Newham counterpart, Conor McAuley. Neither were particularly convincing, as this video from London 24 shows…
Ah, Denise Hyland – cabinet member for minicab firms. To be fair, she could have told Adam from Kidbrooke Kite to bugger off, but she did talk to him. What she said showed just how little thought Greenwich Council put into this campaign.
Had Greenwich considered the impact on traffic and pollution before campaigning for a Silvertown Tunnel? No, she said.
“This is TfL’s job to do this not the Royal Borough of Greenwich. We are a stakeholder and we will hold TfL to account around traffic modelling, environmental impact and the like.”
Holding TfL to account by backing its mad scheme? Eh? But never mind, it’s okay, because the Romans did it…
“What we know, and I take you back into history, is that the Romans discovered that when you put a bridge across a river you get prosperity either side of that bridge and that is really important to us.”
Funny that, because it wasn’t the construction of the second Blackwall Tunnel in 1967 that brought development to the Greenwich peninsula (the old gasworks were entering a 20-year decline) – but the opening of the Jubilee Line in 1999. There’s no sign building a third will do any better.
Indeed, it seems Greenwich has launched the campaign on nothing more than a hunch and a desire to “show leadership” (going back to its basic “do as you’re told” instinct again) – and we’re into a bizarre world when a Labour council is relying on a Tory mayor to come up with the figures to justify what they want.
Curiously, Newham doesn’t seem as on board with the campaign as Greenwich is – a planned campaign page at www.newham.gov.uk/bridgethegap has failed to materialise. Wonder why that is?
Unfortunately, despite the fact that parts of the Greenwich Labour party are revolting against the scheme – local party chairman David Gardner is among the petition’s signatories – it seems that councillors are digging in. And covering their ears. Here’s cabinet member John Fahy, who, incredibly, is in charge of public health issues, so you might think would be worried about something which would cause more pollution.
The case for the Silvertown Tunnel is well made,despite the protests . The option to do nothing or get everybody on a bike is unrealistic.—
Cllr John Fahy (@Cllrjfahy) January 05, 2013
A veteran of local politics should know and act better than this.
Even more bizarrely, he later used the greenwich.co.uk forum to imply that more congestion in Kidbrooke wasn’t an issue because “these issues exist already”.
That’s what we’re up against – but we can still force the council to listen. Please, if you haven’t already, sign the petition and fill in TfL’s consultation. And if you live in the borough of Greenwich, please, ask your local councillors what the hell they think they’re playing at.
Might be worth reminding them they’re up for election next year.
Finally, the London Assembly, which scrutinises the work of the mayor, is holding a seminar on Wednesday about river crossings. If you can’t make it – it’s in the daytime, after all – they’d be delighted to take a written submission. Mine’s on its way, so why not send one too?
11.30pm update: This week’s edition of council pravda Greenwich Time ignores the protests, but wrongly claims TV crews showed up.
Enough is enough – sign up, say no to Silvertown Tunnel
So far, Greenwich Council is up to 554 pledges on its campaign to bring more traffic jams and pollution to local streets with a third Blackwall Tunnel.
The figure was released last week at a council meeting, which included 260 paper responses to its Bridge the Gap campaign, leaving 244 online sign-ups.
The council had been collecting signatures from shoppers in the centre of Woolwich in the run-up to Christmas – indeed, Greenwich Time showed regeneration cabinet member Denise Hyland (the woman who blamed the delays to Greenwich Foot Tunnel on non-existent “hidden structures”) outside Tesco. Wonder why she hasn’t taken her campaign to Greenwich itself yet?
In last week’s meeting, Hyland also branded those who hijacked the council’s attempt to spread its campaign across Twitter as “juvenile individuals”. The quality’s dreadful, but you can hear her talk about it here:
But she insists the names of those who have signed the council’s pledge will remain “confidential information” – despite the fact that this is being used to demonstrate “public support” for the council’s wheeze.
Of course, there’s been no evidence produced by the council for the benefits of a such a tunnel – just a claim that “business and civic leaders” support it, and quotes from cab drivers. Forget kids’ health in Greenwich, a minicab firm in Plumstead can get to London City Airport five minutes quicker!
Yet more of this rubbish is to come, despite the obvious damage to east Greenwich, Charlton, Blackheath, Kidbrooke and Eltham more traffic on the A102 and A2 will cause, with whispers that a formal launch is planned for the new year.
Apart from rumours of unhappiness in local Labour parties – will they have the courage to go public? – no politician and no pressure group has stepped forward to champion the cause against the Silvertown Tunnel. Yet every time I’ve mentioned Silvertown on this website, nearly every commenter comes out against it – something that surprises me. Nearly a year ago, 88% of voters came out against the plan in a poll on this website.
What this area needs is a strategy to funnel traffic away from the A2/A102 – not force more traffic up it, through pollution blackspots such as the Woolwich Road flyover, Kidbrooke, and Eltham stations. That could come in various ways – but our first concern should be to protect our neighbourhoods. If nobody else will, then we, the people who’ll have to live with a tunnel, have to do something instead.
I’ve teamed up with Kidbrooke Kite‘s Adam Bienkov, and today, we’re launching the No to Silvertown Tunnel petition at. Please read it, sign it, and share it with friends and family – www.silvertowntunnel.co.uk.
Please also fill in the TfL consultation. I must stress this isn’t a petition for or against any other road crossing, such as a bridge at Thamesmead, axing Dartford tolls or building public transport or cycle/foot crossings. If you have views on those – and hell, there’s loads more sensible ways to solve this problem than the crock Greenwich Council expects us to swallow – then tell the TfL consultation.
No to Silvertown Tunnel is merely to show the Mayor of London that the people of Greenwich and the surrounding areas do not want more traffic on the A102 and A2. It is also to show Greenwich councillors that their Bridge The Gap campaign does not speak for local people. Your name will appear on the website if you wish it to, it won’t if you don’t wish it to. To verify your signature, you’ll need to sign up for a change.org account, although this won’t take a second.
Signing the petition will also generate emails to the mayor, TfL’s consultation team, Greenwich Council leader Chris Roberts, Newham mayor Sir Robin Wales and cabinet members in both boroughs.
Please, don’t just think “umm, this is a good idea”. Take a couple of minutes to do something. And if you can spare expertise (poster design, web design) and/or time to spend campaigning in person, then we’d really love your help – email silvertowntunnel[at]yahoo.com. We need all the help we can get against the well-funded Greenwich and Newham council PR machines.
This is going to be a big task – but if we can work together, we can stop this crazy idea. Please sign, wherever you are. If you don’t like it, well, your money’s paying for another petition…
The campaigners who halted Boris’s cable car
As Adam reports on The Scoop, the London Cable Car scheme from Greenwich to the Royal Docks has been halted because of safety concerns. It’s a startling development, considering Transport for London was confident the proposal was safe, despite passing through the crash zone of London City Airport.
The hold-up is down to the tenacity of Poplar-based campaigner Alan Haughton and Friends of the Earth‘s Jenny Bates, who have monitored the proposal since it was announced last summer. They claim government safety guidance on such “public safety zones” has been ignored. To put their objections in context, FoE has also backed campaigners who want to stop the airport’s expansion – and Haughton has harried Newham Council on its handling of this, along with the Thamesmead based Fight The Flights group.
I met them at the Greenwich Council planning hearing last month, but our chat was interrupted by a furious Richard De Cani – Transport for London’s strategy director – challenging their claims, even though de Cani had already done his job by winning planning permission, assuring councillors that neither the Civil Aviation Authority nor London City Airport had objected to the scheme.
But Haughton and Bates didn’t give up, and after Greenwich followed Newham and the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation (which is responsible for part of the land in Silvertown) in backing the scheme, they badgered the media with their case – resulting in today’s embarrassing news for City Hall. Now National Air Traffic Services will review the situation and report back to TfL.
Haughton said: “Boris Johnson’s desire to see a Cable Car across the Thames for 2012 is an Olympic sized mess. The planning application has ignored key safety guidelines and objections. Newham Council supported the London City Airport expansion and were fully aware of the increased Public Safety Zone. Newham Council want two bites of the same cherry regardless of the potential human cost.”
TfL is confident the scheme will go ahead and in time for the Olympics – but with a timetable that was already looking extremely tight, that’s now got to be in serious doubt.
Court ruling means more flights for City Airport
While well-heeled Greenwich town centre dwellers will be cursing the Greenwich Market ruling, riverside residents at the other end of the borough have also had bad news today – the challenge against Newham Council’s decision to back the expansion of London City Airport has failed.
The case had been brought by Thamesmead-based campaign group Fight The Flights, whose chairwoman Anne-Marie Griffin now has 14 days to decide whether or not she wants to mount a further appeal. FTF claimed Newham had not taken into account new government guidelines on aviation, and had not consulted neighbouring boroughs – in this case Waltham Forest and Redbridge – properly on the issue.
The airport hailed the ruling as “great news for London City Airport and Newham” – presumably everyone else can get stuffed, then.
If you live by the river and think this won’t affect you – think again. The number of flights using LCY could rise from 80,000 per year to 120,000. You can already hear the roars from take-offs and landings from Blackheath.
On this side of the Thames, Greenwich Council has said it wants much more residential development on the riverside in future (a topic I’ll return to on this blog soon) – so anyone by the Thames in Charlton or Woolwich will have to endure a pretty noisy life thanks to their neighbour across the water.
Greenwich itself has a pretty murky history with LCY – failing to attend meetings with airport management and then endorsing expansion, despite the roar of jets over West Thamesmead.
London Assembly Lib Dem Caroline Pidgeon says Greenwich Council has a few awkward questions to answer. “Many people in east and south east London are already facing serious problems with noise and disturbance from air flights. Today’s decision provides the green light to increased misery for many more Londoners. I remain convinced that greater scrutiny should have been given to the initial planning decision by Newham Council.
“Questions also remain as to why Greenwich Council never objected to the planning decision despite the serious impact that the airport is already having on so many of its residents. Most significantly this decision sends out the message that the economic benefits of aviation are still being exaggerated while its environmental harm is largely overlooked.”
Thamesmead campaigners sue over City Airport
London City Airport sees the launch of a direct executive service to New York on Tuesday, which will no doubt delight many of its neighbours in some of London’s poorest districts, both north and south of the Thames. Don’t believe me? You ask the Telegraph’s Lucy Fitzgeorge-Parker, who penned this admiring piece on the Silvertown airport’s expansion plans:
The fact that there are no vocal lobby groups campaigning against the expansion of London City is partly thanks to a policy of recruiting in the area. More than 70pc of the airport’s 2,000 staff live less than five miles away, and the site is the biggest private sector employer in the borough of Newham. (more)
I wonder what Lucy Fitzgeorge-Parker will make of this, then?
Newham council is being taken to court today [28 September 2009] by local residents over its decision to allow a 50 per cent increase in flights at London City Airport without considering changes to Government policy on climate change or consulting local people.
Fight The Flights, a community group represented by lawyers at Friends of the Earth‘s Rights & Justice Centre, says that before approving the airport’s expansion in July this year, the council should have considered the Government’s intention to reduce aviation emissions to below 2005 levels by 2050 – part of its effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions under the Climate Change Act.
Fight The Flights said Newham council had also failed to consult neighbouring boroughs such as Waltham Forest, even though they will be significantly affected as a result of changes to flight paths since July.
Fight The Flights’ Anne-Marie Griffin said: “Increasing flights at London City Airport is completely wrong – it will bump up carbon emissions and add to the misery of local people who are already suffering from poor air quality and noise disturbance. There are much better ways to bring jobs to this area.
“We appeal to members of the public who care about the environment and about our community to help us fight this decision by donating to help fund our legal challenge.” (more)
No vocal lobby groups? Really? Fight the Flights, based in Thamesmead, is probably the most vocal lobby group I’ve ever come across, with a Twitter feed constantly pumping out arguments against expanding the airport, whose flightpath runs right across the blighted developments of west Thamesmead.
Newham Council will be in for a very hard fight – and this won’t be good news for City Airport fan Boris Johnson, either. This story will be one to watch. Especially if you work for the Telegraph…
