Seren Park and Maze Hill station: the path to nowhere carries on…

The Seren Park flats are just feet away from the platform of Maze Hill staiton – but residents have to walk on a detour of hundreds of metres to get there

How long does it take to remove a padlock on a gate? At Maze Hill station it is taking three years and counting.

That is how long it has taken residents of Seren Park (the new development on the south side of the railway) to get the direct access to Maze Hill station they were promised when they rented or bought their flats. The delay is causing huge frustration to the residents of Seren Park, who have to walk on a long detour via Vanbrugh Hill to get to a station platform just a few feet from their block of flats. it has also caused problems for residents of Tom Smith Close next door, who have seen holes appear in their fence and are not used to their cul-de-sac being used as short cut to the station.

Those who read my post of December 1st last year, or who have read elsewhere that Network Rail had reached agreement with the developer back in February over payment for “access rights” to the station, may be wondering why the gate is still padlocked shut, despite lots of lobbying by residents, all three councillors for Blackheath Westcombe ward and local MP Nick Raynsford.

One reason is the wait for an Oyster card reader to be installed – we were told in March that this could take six weeks, which expire later in April. Ominously, Network Rail and Southeastern have muttered about further delays after that – which does not tally with what Network Rail said in mid-February, when their chief executive David Higgins wrote to local MP Nick Raynsford to say that “agreement has now been reached” between Network Rail and the developer, that getting a legal document finalised was just a formality, and that the path could open as soon as an Oyster card reader was in place.

GLA Member Len Duvall and I have asked Southeastern (and Transport for London, which supplies the Oyster readers) to confirm that the path will be opened as soon as it is installed, and to hurry up. I hope that residents can be reassured that once the Oyster Card reader is in place the gate can open immediately.

In the meantime, it would be helpful for any residents concerned to join us in asking Network Rail, Southeastern and the developer Urban Solutions what on earth is going on, why the Oyster  Card reader wasn’t installed months ago, and when the gate will finally be unpadlocked. If you want to do so via me, please do so at alex.grant@greenwich.gov.uk and I will be happy to pass emails on.

Local people have been very patient and have been treated shabbily. I will keep the pressure up until this gate is finally opened.

Lost in the Maze: residents demand station access to be opened

Residents of Seren Park (the new development on the south side of Maze Hill station) and residents of Woodland Heights (the former nurses’ home on Vanbrugh Hill and Restell Close) held a photocall this morning, December 1st, to urge Network Rail and the developer to see sense and open the path to the Station that they were promised several years ago.

At the time the new flats were given permission six years ago, the council made building a new path from the development to Maze Hill station a condition of the planning consent. But railway bureaucracy has meant the path has been built but still not opened, and while a gate to the path has been installed, it is still padlocked shut.

As well as about ten residents and I, the other two Conservative councillors for the ward were there and have been active in the campaign, which has been cross-party and which I hope will bring results soon. Nick Raynsford MP has also been very active, writing to the chief executive of Network Rail several times about the issue.

While we were there this morning, we saw two commuters squeeze through a hole in the chainlink fencing next to the padlocked gate – clearly people are already voting with their feet and have had enough of going on a detour of 300 or 400 yards to get from their homes to the station. If the path was open, it would only be a walk of ten or twenty yards to the station platform.

Network Rail say they are not bound by the planning condition, as it was signed by Connex, the old train operating company, not by Network Rail themselves. Southeastern Railway (the railway operator that took over from Connex about five years ago) says that they are happy for access to be provided, but that Network Rail has the ultimate say as they own the freehold of the station, which is leased to Southeastern.

There used to be three blocks of flats on the site (then called Restell Close): Lister, Jenner and Norfolk Houses, which provided nurses’ housing for the former Greenwich District Hospital. In those days there was a path used regularly by local people that ran from the end of the cul-de-sac parallel with the railway platform and emerged near the Maze Hill station building.

Network Rail says this was never a right of way, and to reopen a path along a similar route is fine in principle – but only if the developer pays a hefty fee for access rights for their residents (who have of course already paid for their railway journeys through costly season tickets) to walk up a ten–yard path, already built at the developers’ expense, to the station platform.

This bureaucratic muddle has left residents understandably bewildered- all they want is for the path to be opened so they can enjoy the easy, direct access to Maze Hill station they were promised when they bought or rented their flats. They are fed up with years of excuses from Network Rail and the developers, and I can see why.

How 9+2 = 9 in TFL’s arithmetic

Details of the traffic-light timings of a pedestrian crossing on Shooter’s Hill Road may not seem to be the most exciting of topics to blog about, but please bear with me. This is a tale of how a bureaucracy can tie itself in knots, and has a serious moral at the end.

About a year and a half ago I was contacted by three or four residents – independently of each other – to complain that they were finding the crossing on the corner of Shooter’s Hill Road and Vicarage Avenue was giving pedestrians less and less time to cross the road. TFL (Transport for London – the super-agency run by the Mayor which runs, buses, tubes and major roads like the A2) had announced, under new Mayor Boris Johnson, a review of traffic light timings on main roads across London, and it seemed that this crossing may have been one affected by it. I had a look for myself and found that the crossing gave pedestrians nine seconds to cross four lanes of traffic (there is no central island here) before the green man started flashing – just enough time for an able-bodied person to get across, but not enough time for those slow on their feet, with heavy shopping, or pushchairs. The crossing is well-used, being a vital link between the Kidbrooke Grove and Kidbrooke Park Road area and the shops and services around Old Dover Road and the Standard to the north.

Len Duvall (the local Labour member of the London Assembly) and I wrote to TFL to ask if the crossing times had been changed, and if so could the change be reviewed – or the timings adjusted, even if they had not been changed as thee public perception was that this crossing did not give enough time to cross in safety. Replies from TFL were contradictory – timings had been changed as part of a new “traffic response system”, but would now be reviewed; no changes had been made; and that timings had not been intentionally changed but a computer glitch had crept in and this would be corrected.

Back at the crossing, the timings stayed the same and more complaints trickled in. Even when the green man was still on, I was hearing that motorists jumped the ,lights and narrowly avoid hitting pedestrians, or would rev their engines aggressively. More needed to be done to make it clear to motorists, for whom the A2 is a motorway-style road all the ay from Dover to the Sun-in-Sands roundabout, that Shooter’s Hill Road is not a motorway and they needed to slow down and respect pedestrian crossings. More importantly, TFL needed to recognise that roads like the A2 need to be crossed in safety, and that TFL have a responsibility to makings these crossings safer, not just speeding traffic flows up.

The local Tory councillors, to their discredit, have put out a leaflet lately saying “Labour gets it wrong” about the crossing, and insisting the timings  have not been changed and that the crossing is judged to be safe by TFL, so that’s that. The trouble is that local residents disagree, and say that they feel the crossing now gives less time for them to cross – and that in any case the crossing may not have given pedestrians enough time to cross in the first place.

TFL have now said that Department for Transport guidelines mean that they have no discretion to give more than nine seconds of a “green man” phase, but have now agreed to add in an extra two seconds in the cycle before the yellow light starts flashing for motorists, after the green man starts flashing for pedestrians. An extra two seconds have, at long last, been found by sleight of hand for pedestrians to cross the road in relative safety, but only after months of lobbying. Not a great rate of return, but it is better than nothing.

If only TFL had moved more quickly, been more willing to think beyond the Highways rulebook, remember that guidelines are not rigid rules, and recognise that Shooter’s Hill Road is a community, not a motorway verge.

Buses and the Marathon – 11 days before election day!

What a week. Now tired after having returned (on the bus) from a lovely evening meeting some voters in the Cator estate around Morden Road and The Plantation. I never ceased to be amazed what strong communities we have throughout the ward, but especially in the pockets of Blackheath. Residents can easily rattle off not just all the neighbours but their predecessors as well.

People seemed pleased with local public transport but some useful pointers on the need for more reliability in some of the bus services. Everyone delighted with the new 386 service to Greenwich that both Alex and I were involved in extending and, in general, with the train service. Much praise about the Library service in Greenwich and people were looking forward to the re-opening of the refurbished Blackheath Library tomorrow (Monday) on Old Dover Road.

The other big event of the day – apart from canvassing more SE3 voters this morning – was the great London marathon. I wet out with my eldest daughter for a shorter than normal early morning run through the unexpected rain and saw the elite women pounding the streets to return home for shower, coffee and that great annual spectacle of over 30,000 runners passing right outside our house. The one time of the year where disparate neighbours all come together and chat welcoming the eerily silent road devoid of traffic until the approach of wave upon wave of marathon runners in all shapes and sizes from all parts of the UK and well beyond. People are very happy to forego their car for the morning and the bus service. As well as taking to neighbours, you see many more people walking to church, or to friends or down to see the marathon on the lower road. Our very own car free day which clearly causes inconvenience to some but so well organised is the event we know that the routes will reopen around noon and the magical morning passes for another year.

We have to capture this great community spirit we see on marathon morning when everyone talks to each other and shouts encouragement and remember to always help our neighbours and just to say hello to people we pass. To think of others first and not to walk by on the other side of the street. Whatever our differences in terms of education, job (or no job), race, religion, language, age or gender we are all part of the same community. So in this public spirit, when I saw that a less publicly spirited fellow citizen had smashed the glass in the bus shelter on Charlton Road at the Standard (outside Wentworth house), I rang the special London Buses Adshel number immediately to report the glass all over the road on what is by far the busiest bus stop in the ward. I must say though, as upsetting as seeing the vandalism is, it is a far rarer occurrence now than a few years back.

Tomorrow we will be out all day throughout Blackheath and Westcombe Park with Nick Raynsford and the parliamentary hustings in the evening. The election is certainly hotting up with now just 11 days to go!

David L Gardner

Blackheath Station – more carriages in the morning, and a lift at last

One issue that has been raised form time to time on the door step with David, Pat and I is the recent changes to the train timetable at Blackheath. While the number of off-peak trains to an from Blackheath has gone up ,there has been a slight reduction in the number of trains from Blackheath to London between 8am and 9am and this caused some more crowding on services after the change was made in December r 2009.

Nick Raynsford and I had met with Southeastern in late March, and they announced that the most crowded train – the 8.48 from Blackheath to Charing Cross – will be made ten cars rather than eight cars long with effect from May 22nd. Southeastern also say that the long-awaited lift at Blackheath station will finally be installed in the summer of this year.

There are no timetable changes proposed, but apparently the crowding problems have eased- possibly because those who live elsewhere have stopped driving to Blackheath to catch trains. There has always been a problem with stations in Zone 3, such as Blackheath, being used by commuters from Kent driving up here an d parking on local roads and caching a train to avoid higher fares by commuting by train all the way from Kent or wherever. Certainly the number of complaints about overcrowding I have received have gone down in recent months – and on my own commute via Blackheath station I have managed to get a seat or at least stand comfortably.

We will be watching closely what the effects are of the latest proposed change, and if necessary push for more substantial changes in the next timetable change in December 2010. The timetable change was very good news for Maze Hill and Westcombe Park stations, but more mixed news for Blackheath. Southeastern have shown themselves to be more responsive than the old train operator Connex, which was widely derided as useless, so I hope that the service will be maintained and improved. I remember in the 1980s that Westcombe Park station only had two trains an hour in each direction in the daytime – it now has six – so we need to make sure that the levels of service we now take for granted are not cut.

Alex Grant