Woodberry Down School Street / Woodberry Grove LTN decision to make permanent

[Adrian Essex]

I've seen an email from Hackney's Streetscene department stating that a decision was to have been taken yesterday, 7th November 2022, to make the school street and Low Traffic Neighbourhood permanent, 

I'm trying to find out if this actually happened.

An extract from the email , from

• Adi Roser
• Senior Sustainable Transport Planner
• Streetscene, Public Realm
• Climate, Homes and Economy
• Hackney Council
• Hackney Service Centre, 1 Hillman Street, E8 1DY
•  
• 020 8356 3509 
• [e-mail]

reads

We have reviewed the schemes in detail and believe that they are positively contributing to the primary aims of reducing congestion in the street at school opening and closing times, improving air quality and reducing emissions around the school gates, increasing road safety and accessibility for non-motorised users and encouraging walking and cycling to school for pupils and parents/carers. We therefore plan to recommend that the schemes be made permanent.

We're aware you've previously expressed concerns about the potential for the estate road to be used as a shortcut as a result of the scheme's operation, and about potential traffic displacement on the periphery of the School Street zone. We have monitored this over the 18 month experimental period of the schemes. This has included conducting automatic traffic counts to monitor traffic flows. This data has shown that overall there has been a reduction in traffic on Woodberry Grove over a 24-hour period and during the school drop off / pick up times. This indicates that the schemes are positively contributing to the primary aims of reducing motor traffic on a residential road with two schools located on, and specifically outside of school gates. Traffic counts on Seven Sisters Estate Road and Rowley Gardens in December 2021 and May 2022 show that traffic flows are on average 0.6 vehicles per minute on the estate road, and 0.3 vehicles per minute on Rowley Gardens during the School Street operational times. These are considered minor flows and therefore do not indicate that congestion is occurring on these roads as a result of the scheme. For this reason, it is deemed that the schemes are not having a significant negative impact on surrounding roads, with benefits of the scheme outweighing any displacement that has occurred. I hope this helps answer the concerns you have previously raised.

We wanted to make you aware of our intention to recommend that the schemes be made permanent. If you have any further comments then please let me know and I will make sure that these are duly recorded and noted.

[Adrian Essex]

Adi has rung me and confirmed that the school street has been made permanent, but subject to review.

Hackney has a school streets portal. At present the Woodberry Down entry is under the heading "Experimental", no doubt the website admin will shortly move it to "Permanent"