Harmood Street Safe and Healthy Streets

Overview

Proposal to make the existing motor vehicle traffic restriction and parking amendments on Harmood Street permanent, including new trees, planting and a new informal pedestrian crossing point

About the Harmood Street Safe and Healthy Streets scheme

In June 2020 we received a petition from residents requesting the reduction of motor vehicle through traffic on Harmood Street. Traffic counts were conducted on Harmood Street in September 2020 and showed that the volumes of motor vehicle traffic using the street were high for a residential street. There was an average of 2000 motor vehicles a day - 787 motor vehicles per day moving northbound and 1307 moving southbound. In general, we know that more cars than ever are using residential streets to cut through between main roads. Recent figures from the DfT suggest a 72.2% increase in traffic using residential streets in London since sat-navs were introduced.

As a direct response to the petition and the traffic counts, in December 2020 we consulted on and then introduced a trial traffic restriction on Harmood Street. You can read the decision report related to the trial. This decision report noted that a further consultation, after around 12 months of the trial scheme, would take place on any proposed permanent arrangements of the trial scheme. This is that promised consultation. The trial scheme went live under an Experimental Traffic Order (ETO) in January 2021 and since then, it has been monitored and comments from residents and stakeholders have been received.

What we are now consulting on

Based on the monitoring data and the feedback received from residents and stakeholders via Commonplace and email correspondence during the trial period, we are now consulting on the following measures:

• Making the existing motor vehicle restriction permanent, in a position slightly closer to the junction with Clarence Way and making the conversion of 17.1 meters of Pay by Phone parking space outside No. 35-39 Harmood Street to Shared Use (resident and pay by phone parking) permanent
• Amending the existing restriction by removing the planters and the speed humps, installing a new raised pedestrian crossing with a new footway buildout with 15m of residents parking on the western side of the street (north of the restriction) and, 5m of residents parking on the eastern side of the street (south of the restriction) with space available for vehicles to turn

Properties on Harmood Street to the north of the restriction will continue to be accessible via Prince of Wales Road. Properties on Harmood Street to the south of the restriction will continue to be accessible via Chalk Farm Road. 

Why your views matter

This consultation will help further inform, alongside monitoring data collected and relevant policies, the Council’s decision as to whether, at the end of the trial period, the experimental scheme should be made permanent, modified (and, if so, whether with or without changes) or allowed to lapse.

What happens next

After the consultation, a decision report considering the consultation responses, relevant policies and other data/information will be produced and published online via our website. Residents and stakeholders will be notified about the outcome and the next steps.