Details
Mortlake, East Sheen, Barnes, and Kew contain a corridor hugely constrained by the river Thames, the railway and Richmond Park giving rise to regular and serious levels of traffic congestion causing both gridlock and safety risks at strategic junctions and hotspots such as the four level crossings at Mortlake Station, Manor Road, White Hart Lane and Vine Road and Chalker’s Corner on the A316. Four new developments are destined to accommodate at least an additional 3,000 homes and more than 6,000 people living and working in the area. A new 1200 secondary school and special needs school is also proposed, which will create significant additional burden on the transport infrastructure. In addition to this there are major uncertainties over the future of Hammersmith Bridge and rail and bus service levels in the locality, some of which have recently been reduced. Despite poor public transport accessibility, the developers own transport assessments, considered during individual planning applications, have all concluded that their schemes have little impact on the transport network and therefore require little/no mitigation by way of improvements to the transport infrastructure. The base data used to support these decisions is of questionable value, having been gathered either before or during the pandemic and before the closure of both Hammersmith Bridge and Sheen Gate in Richmond Park. In addition, the Local Transport Implementation Plan has not been updated since 2018 and does not accurately consider the cumulative nor individual impacts of the four developments in this locality, even in the section considering long term interventions to 2041. This area is not designated as an Opportunity or Growth Area by the Mayor and is therefore not included at London Level for transport infrastructure improvements. Furthermore, this area will not benefit from Crossrail 2, the Elizabeth line, the Bakerloo line extension or the west London orbital. Instead, the Council appears to believe that the challenging future mode choice targets set by the London Mayor’s Transport Strategy and the local school and residential Transport Plans can be achieved in this area. We see no evidence that this significant increase in development can be accommodated within our current transport infrastructure – principally roads - when our current public transport service levels are so weak. The area is not Central nor Inner London and lies outside an Outer London town centre. We need evidence that these developments have been accurately and realistically reflected in transport forecasts and independent advice from experts on the optimum way to mitigate these pressures. This has not been done adequately during the planning or local plan process to date. Richmond has not provided evidence that they have considered with TFL the cumulative and individual local impacts of the forecast population growth from the four proposed developments on the transport infrastructure in the locality and any mitigation required to comply with the Mayors Transport Strategy. It is particularly necessary to do this in highly congested and access-constrained areas. We therefore respectfully ask that the Mayor and Richmond Council to work together to appoint an independent transport consultant to assess the detailed cumulative impact of the developments on the transport infrastructure in the locality and to determine what action is needed to mitigate this. We believe this is required to properly address the developers’ own transport assessments, and to ensure mitigation measures are sufficient to promote the Mayors Transport objectives included in the Mayors Transport Policy 21 - ‘Good Growth’.
Started by: Niki Crookdake (on behalf of Green Party Councillor, Mortlake & Barnes Common )
This petition ran from 16/06/2023 to 16/09/2023.
Signatures
1349 people have signed this petition.
