Safer Brownhill Road

A quick post to draw your attention to a petition that has been set up by Natasha Clarkson, a fellow Corbett Estate resident, asking for TfL and Lewisham Council to look at improving the safety of two crossings on Brownhill Road (also known as the South Circular) - one at Torridon Road, just up from where this picture was taken, and the other at Stainton Road.

Anyone who lives in the area knows Brownhill Road is a traffic nightmare (and it's also a polluted one as an aside), and crossing it is unpleasant and unsafe. There are no pedestrian crossings between Verdant Lane and Stainton Road, the zebra where a student was killed earlier this year. Trying to cross at Torridon involves waiting for the lights to change and then sprinting across before the cars get going again - not much use for people with young children, or the infirm.

Natasha says we need 1,000 signatures on the petition to trigger TfL to look at the crossings. It currently has just over 500 so please share it around!

Bakerloo line to Catford? Yes please!

Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the last few days it won't have escaped your attention that there is a proposal on the table from TfL to bring the Bakerloo line to Catford. I've completely missed the BREAKING NEWS bandwagon, but I can't let this go uncommented on completely.

Others have written lots about the detail, the politics, and how likely it is to happen

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Diamond Geezer
Ian Visits
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And of course Brockley Central have coined a natty new hashtag for the occasion.

I hear that Southwark Council is keen, and Lewisham are so keen they've launched a website and a petition (see below).

Of course, if you want something to happen, signing a petition, retweeting, liking on facebook, tweeting the Mayor and all of that are all well and good but TfL only really pay attention to consultation responses so for goodness sake fill that in as well as doing all the social media stuff.

There are a few things that are undecided, such as the route the line would take to get to Lewisham, whether it will be extended beyond Lewisham, whether it will go to Bromley and so on. I hear Bromley council aren't keen to push this, so if we want to see the line come beyond Lewisham itself and into Catford, we need to be active about responding to the consultation ourselves and not relying on others. It takes less than 5 minutes to complete.

The cost of the proposed extension is £2-£3 billion, which is £1-2billion less than the Mayor's roadbuilding programme, all the more reason to put a stop to that and push on with this.

And we really need to incorporate the cat!
(photo by Luke Agbaimoni)


Petition: