The pedestrian crossing on Sutton Common Road will be built on Monday; Sutton Garden Suburb are to get new heritage lamp-posts; the Vicarage Road parking scheme gets the go-ahead; a new site is found for the neighbourhood recycling centre on Sutton Green to deal with flytippers; and after lobbying the developers planning the new Sainsbury’s store have agreed not to use Vale Road as an access entrance.
Sutton Common Road pedestrian crossing to be built on Monday
This has been an on-going issue for a while so it will be a mighty relief to see the works actually take place.
In March we erected new flashing LED signs warning drivers travelling at over the 30mph speed limit (pictured) however this proved to be only a limited success.
The orginal plan to build a pedestrian crossing fell because residents immediately affected lodged objections. However local councillors were firmly of the view that there was a very real and serious issue with speeding and continued to pursue solutions. It’s an issue I have been particularly involved with.
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New heritage lighting for Sutton Garden Suburb
I made a plea to fellow councillors to approve the £15,000 funding needed to complete the second phase of installing the heritage lighting. As a result the scheme was taken off the ‘reserved’ list and was approved.
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Vicarage Road parking scheme gets go-ahead
These plans involve the creating of new parking spaces to ease the parking pressure on the road.
Some bays will be coverted from visitors only to a shared residents and visitors, and a motorcycle bay which is not regularly used by any bikes will become a residents space.
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Vale Road won’t be an access road for Sainsbury’s!
In fact LXB have had a number of representations about the access road issue. However at Tuesday’s Sutton Local Committee Chris Evans from LXB announced that they were no longer considering Vale Road as one of the options to access the site.
I’m sure this will be a huge relief to local residents, as it is to me!
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Flytipping on Sutton Green recycling site – a solution is found!
The issue came up at the Sutton Local Committee this Tuesday (see link) with the question thrown open about what to do. The three options were:
- Keep the recycling site as it is but do more monitoring;
- Remove the mixed dry recycling bins but leave the other bins for materials that cannot be recycled at home (eg. clothes, books);
- Remove the recycling site altogether.
After some discussion we decided on a different option! We will remove the mixed dry recycling bins from Sutton Green – as per option 2 – but will relocate those bins to another site nearby (exact position to be determined).
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Vermont Road parking (update)
As I reported last month (see link) I helped push the Council’s Environment and Neighbourhood Committee to make an exception to their rule about protecting grass verges so that we could create desperately needed parking spaces on the road.
The exceptional circumstances are that fire engines and refuge trucks are sometimes unable to gain access to the road because cars are blocking their way due to extreme parking pressure. Residents of the sheltered housing block are clearly worried about a fire engine or ambulance not being able to reach them.
We will be organising a general consultation for all residents of Vermont Road very shortly (some details have changed since we last spoke to them!), and if residents are happy the scheme should get final approval at the next Sutton Local Committee on 15th January.
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Bushey Road – do we need a crossing next to bus garage?
Council traffic officers have been looking into it – indeed I had a site visit with them recently – and sadly they advise that it is not practical to install a crossing here due to the shape of the junction. They also advise that pedestrian islands are not recommended because of space needed for turning buses.
I have mixed views about this.
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Collingwood Road – residents object to crossing plan
Collingwood Road is busy at the best of times and is used as a route for ‘off-duty’ buses heading to the garage as well as a normal bus route. So I have a lot of sympathy with the elderly residents.
Sadly the results of consultation of the properties that would be immediately affected by a pedestrian crossing was almost unanimously against the idea.
However there is still an issue about crossing the road, and so I plan to get together with my ward colleagues to see if there are any other solutions to this problem.
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Scouts get grant to fix hut
Scout leader Andrew Gorley (pictured above) and some young scouts attended the Sutton Local Committee this Tuesday to speak about their activities, including a range of adventure trips.
Last month they hosted a ‘Love Where You Live’ event sponsored by McDonalds, which is usually aimed at cleaning litter to improve the neighbourhood and promoting a message of not dropping litter.
However this year I was delighted they extended their activities on the day to include building a flowerbed.
The Scouts have already raised £4,000 towards improvements to the hut (one of the halls is out of use because of roof problems) and the Council grant from our Public Realm money should be enough to complete the job!
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Hotel plan for old Burger King site fall through
Burger King closed many months ago and it became a magnet for flytipping until I lobbied the developers to erect a large fence, which thankfully they did!
We need to do all we can to find a good use for the site, either as a residential development or a use that creates local jobs and with a building that enhances the north end of the High Street.
With plans on course for a major Sainsbury’s store, hotel and retail across the road, the old Burger King plot takes on added importance as a development opportunity.
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By Lester Holloway @brolezholloway