In our latest councillor’s column, Liberal Democrat councillor Alessandra Rossetti calls for more action to reduce traffic problems in her ward

Alessandra Rossetti (credit Haringey Lib Dems)

Traffic gridlock has been a perennial problem in Alexandra Park ward for as long as I’ve been a councillor.

Since being elected in 2018, I have lost count of the number of times I’ve raised the issue on behalf of residents, written enquiries to the council, asked questions at full council, and been involved in meetings with Haringey Council officers and cabinet members.

My first councillor column back in 2021 was about this issue, especially the gridlocks along the Alexandra Park Road/Durnsford Road/Albert Road and Blake Road/Winton Avenue/Crescent Rise down to Crescent Road/Palace Gate Road route taken by motorists trying to cut through.

I was hopeful at that point that we might be seeing progress: after a lot of representation and residents campaigning, the low-traffic neighbourhood (LTN) in Enfield during summer 2020 pushed Haringey Council into designing an LTN scheme in Bounds Green to mitigate any potential spill-over traffic and a trial was implemented in August 2022.

Then, in March 2022, I was pleased to see that pressure from local Lib Dems had resulted in £250,000 being set aside for a traffic scheme in Alexandra Palace North as part of the Walking and Cycling Action Plan, one of the few fully-funded schemes in the document.

But we are over two years on from that, and where are we now? The introduction of the Bounds Green LTN effectively closed the Blake Road end of the cut-through but the gridlocks and road rage at the other end have persisted. The traffic scheme in the Walking and Cycling Action Plan was left on paper, and my understanding is that the £250,000 in the initial plan is no longer available, with any future actions now needing to be funded on an ad-hoc basis by bidding for external public funding such as through TfL.

In the meantime, our roads have been plagued by non-residential traffic trying to avoid the North Circular – the bus gate in Brownlow Road was put forward as the only solution able to stop this, but progress on this remains unclear – and events in Alexandra Palace and Tottenham Hotspur Stadium bring additional traffic and parking issue in the Crescent Road/Palace Gate Road area. I look on with increasing concern at the traffic repercussions of the recent council decision to give permission to double the number of non-football events at Tottenham.

All the council has come up with as a solution to the ongoing problems is yet another traffic review, a consultation about residents’ travel, transport, shopping and socialising experiences in the Alexandra area of the borough.

Consulting residents is always a laudable and democratic step, but over the years there’s been one consultation after another on which residents have commented and mapped the same traffic hotspots and issues: on street spaces (June 2020), on the Walking and Cycling Action Plan (2021), on the Bounds Green LTN design (Feb 2021) and trial (ongoing until 20th September), on the Local Plan with sections transport and open spaces (January 2021), on parking and CPZ consultation (December 2021) , on speed reduction in Dunsford Road (January 2023) and on dockless bike locations (ongoing).

How many more consultations are needed before something is actually done to reduce the non-residential traffic? Does Haringey Council expect a different response? Does Haringey Council expect that by magic the problems raised for the past 20+ years by councillors and residents have gone away?

The talking has gone on for long enough: now is the time for the council to finally act.

Alessandra Rossetti is a Liberal Democrat councillor representing Alexandra Park ward, alongside Labour councillor Sarah Elliott. Get in touch with Cllr Rossetti:
Call 07976 977 911
Email [email protected]

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