Latest news

LTN consultation extended

Technical problems with the Harrow Council website and web forms yesterday, meant the website was down for a few hours. This downtime may have impacted on the Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) consultation and respondents may not have been able to complete the consultation process during that period.

The LTN consultation has been open for three weeks and was scheduled to close yesterday, but following the website’s technical issues, a decision has been made to extend the LTN consultation until 23.59 tomorrow evening (23 March), to ensure respondents have an opportunity to participate.

Have you had your say on the Streetspace cycling and school street schemes yet?

• Feedback open to all Harrow residents and stakeholders

• Harrow Streetspace Commonplace page closes - 31 March

• Feedback to be considered at a Special Traffic and Road Safety Advisory Panel (TARSAP) in April.

Harrow Council seeks to encourage residents to leave their views about its experimental cycle lanes and school streets, as they near the end of their six-month trials. Residents have until the 31 March to take part and leave their feedback via the Harrow Commonplace engagement portal.

The Harrow Streetspace initiative, funded by the Government, includes four school streets and three cycle lanes. These measures were put in place following government guidance to create space for people to socially distance, making streets safer, quieter and less polluted and to encourage walking and cycling, while public transport was at reduced capacity.

School streets were introduced in areas with historically high levels of drop off and pick up by car, in order to keep the environment safer for pedestrians and cyclists.

Cycle lanes were created on either dual carriageways or roads that have multiple lanes, reducing some road speeds to 30mph to improve safety for cyclists.

The cycle lane and school street schemes support Harrow’s longer-term climate and health objectives of reducing air pollution, levels of obesity and diabetes, while also tackling congestion, speeding and improving overall road safety.

Introduced using an experimental traffic regulation order (ETRO), the schemes were proposed for a trial period of six months. An ETRO can stay in place for a minimum of 6 months and a maximum of 18 months, while the schemes are monitored and assessed.

During the trials, engagement with stakeholders including bus operators, community groups and the emergency services has taken place. Online engagement via the Harrow Streetspace page on Commonplace has also received feedback since the start of the schemes.

Residents, businesses, schools and key stakeholders in each scheme area have been written to, encouraging them to share their views on the schemes before the deadline.

The Low Traffic Neighbourhood (LTN) consultation is now open. We welcome views from all Harrow residents and stakeholders, as to how we progress with the LTN schemes currently in place.

The Headstone South, Francis Road, Vaughan Road and Southfield Park* LTNs were introduced last year, using an experimental traffic regulation order (ETRO) for a six-month trial period. 

The consultation forms part of the six-month review process of the schemes and is open until 21 March 2021.

Changes to Harrow’s Streetspace programme will improve access for the emergency services and give residents peace of mind over Christmas.

We have made immediate improvements to our Streetspace programme following conversations with emergency services and ward Councillors.

At the talks the London Fire Brigade highlighted potential changes to ease access to Stanmore Fire station. While the Ambulance Service, the Fire Brigade and the Police confirmed the positive news that they have continued to meet their statutory target response times in the borough, the concern is that with the significant and growing increases in Covid-19 infection rates and additional winter pressures, this could impact severely on the resources of the emergency services when dealing with additional cases.

The need to support our emergency services partners is a priority for the Council, particularly in the run up to Christmas when services may be over stretched.

In response, we've decided to make immediate improvements to the Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) and Honeypot Lane cycle lane which include:

Cllr Graham Henson, Leader of Harrow Council said of the immediate changes, “Following recent conversations with the emergency services on the growing pressures they face with winter and the increasing infection rates for Covid-19 in Harrow, we have taken swift action to support their services by improving their access to the LTNs and Stanmore fire station.

“LTNs have a place in Harrow and we are committed to creating schemes that work for our residents and local communities.

This is why we will be engaging directly with those residents living within LTNs and school streets in the new year inviting them to give their views on these changes and future proposals for the schemes.

“In normal circumstances, we would have engaged more extensively with the community before introducing the Streetspace schemes but due to the nature of the emergency and the requirement of the conditions of Government funding we had to act with unprecedented speed.”

There have been mixed reviews of the use of planters to close roads in LTNs to reduce traffic and improve safety. The Council are carrying out monthly reviews to understand their impact, which includes feedback from residents and the emergency services.

The December review (based on data collected in November) and any proposed changes to Streetspace schemes will be presented at a newly scheduled Traffic and Road Safety Advisory Panel (TARSAP) meeting in January.

School streets on the other hand are growing in popularity amongst Harrow Head Teachers with a further 10 talking with the Council about how the scheme would work for them and the application/funding process.

Cllr Henson says: “As cases of Coronavirus continue to rise rapidly in Harrow, and London, it is vital that we deliver traffic-schemes that enable our residents to social distance while also creating safer neighbourhoods, improving road safety and reducing the impact of the climate emergency.”

The next TARSAP meeting will be held on Monday 11th January 2021 at 6.30pm.

Last week we temporarily moved planters on Southfield Park, Kingsfield Avenue and Pinner View (by Bolton Road) in response to residents’ concerns and to help alleviate the additional pressure on the road network caused by essential road works to replace gas mains on Station Road.

The planters were installed as temporary emergency measures earlier this autumn in four areas of Harrow to create safer streets in neighbourhoods affected by high volumes of traffic and pollution. Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) are part of the Government initiative to support social distancing and promote greater levels of walking and cycling. Councils were required to implement emergency schemes with unprecedented pace – the speed that the council acted was in response to the nature of the emergency but also a requirement of the conditions for Government funding.

We’ve listened to your feedback and we're going to keep these changes in place until we do the overall review of the scheme.