Latest designs are now available online:

Lewisham Council is conducting a consultation process to agree significant improvements to Dartmouth Road between the junction with London Road and Thorpewood Avenue. The Council would like to receive further comments on these documents from the community, to inform the continuing detailed design process.

Please respond either email to transport@lewisham.gov.uk. The closing date is midnight on Sunday 17 January 2016.

Michael, thank you for that. I note that there is still no provision to stop vehicles parking at the roads thinnest point by Boots. Pity as it causes a lot of issues.

Londondrz,
There are plans for double yellow lines on both sides of the road at this section of the road, with inset loading bays for businesses. Hopefully double yellow lines would prevent parking in these locations - it works elsewhere on the street.

Hi Michael, thanks for the response. It is a real pain at times, I can understand the florist parking her van there to load but the owner of the nail bar in his white BMW doesnt need to park there.

The white BMW parked so far across the pavement yesterday that it was single file on the pavement. Was slightly irritating.

On a positive note I'm glad to see the Council have responded to the concerns in the consultation by making the road wider. A victory for common sense. I'm intrigued at why they think traffic will do 20 mph on this road when some do 50 mph at present. Are we going to get a camera?

Just had another look and watched the slide show, it looks superb.

Shouldn't the first objective actually read - Increase speed to 20mph? I do once recall reaching around 15mph on that stretch of road but it was some years ago now.

I have just been looking at another potential improvement - but it would need the William Hill and their Freeholder to be willing and helpful (please!).

As most pedestrians - with or without buggies - will know, the access between the corner of William Hill and the traffic lights/railings is stupidly tight and there's also quite a steep camber from the kerb down to the building.

Well, I reckon WH don't actually get any real benefit from the jutty-out pointy bit so, in my opinion, cutting it off diagonally (at ground floor level only) with supporting columns set about 10 feet back from the corner point on the front and side elevations would eliminate that pinch-point and it might allow for the camber to be made a little shallower.

I don't know how instances like this work - where necessary improvements to public highways are concerned - but I believe Lewisham council, TfL, William Hill and their Freeholder should be able to get together to come up with a workable deal; especially as the alterations could be made without too much hassle and the net effect on the shop unit wouldn't be too detrimental - v's - the permanent benefit to the town.

(Or is this just another one of my harebrained ideas?)

The annoying doorway jutting out of W.Hills has probably been disturbing the flow of people for over a 100 years, and you have to wonder why the road planners did not buy the now site of W.Hills when they set out the course of Dartmouth Rd as it is now. There had to be something important there that they wanted to preserve.

My thoughts are that there was a short lived half section of decorative canal preserved on this side of the road on this site, that matched the half section of canal that was bricked in along Davids Rd - too many angles of the W.Hill site align a little too well - this is by design imo.
I'll speculate further and suggest that there was some original canal feature jutting out at this point, like the wall of the swing bridge. Merging old maps can put a canal wall aligned right under this very doorway.

No evidence for any of this though. I try to be interesting...

Perryman - yes, one wonders!

Wasn't the canal where the train lines are though?

Whether it was built like that as some form of a reference to what was, they could've built something of a better quality than this piece of c**p. Or, to put it another way, they couldn't have built anything worse than this if they tried!

In my opinion, the bottom line is that it doesn't work today and I believe some effort should be made to try to resolve the problem whilst there is such a big focus in improving Dartmouth Road - not to mention the previous talk of making the T-junction work better for pedestrians getting to and from the station.

The canal usually followed the contours of the land unlike the rail,
so it deviated up Davids Rd to skirt round the natural depression where the SCirc underpass now follows.

Maybe without this pavement narrowing, visitors might more likely be drawn up Dartmouth Road to shop - it would be more welcoming perhaps.
Then again it is hardly that inconvenient to negotiate compared with crossing the main roads or walking up the pedestrian underpass steps with a pram/shopping.
And the psychology of shoppers is not straight forward - they love the narrow twisty passages of the Lanes at Brighton, for instants.

Anyway, as I remember, WHills site will get redeveloped when they get round to developing the whole of that station area. So don't hold your breath.

'Don't hold your breath' indeed!

Article here by Kate in South London Press.

http://www.slp.co.uk/article.cfm?id=115386

I just wanted to highlight this issue again because it has huge implications for the future viability of Forest Hill town centre.

If anyone has any comments or suggestions please email the council today on

transport@lewisham.gov.uk

Forest Hill Society response can be read at http://www.foresthillsociety.com/2016/01...realm.html

I know it's not a stated aim, but is there an expectation that these 'improvements' will decrease the volume of traffic using Dartmouth Road,? If so, where do people think all those extra Sth Circular bound vehicles are going to go instead?
Just wondering...

Red67 - The way I see it I don't think there's anything in the proposals that would decrease Sth Circ bound traffic and, if anything, it might help vehicles to pass through more freely in both directions.

I have sent my two-penneth in -

Hello Team.

I am a local landlord with x shops, x flats, a gym and a workshop all on Dartmouth Road and, having been there since 1986, I am very tuned-in on how things work on the road from many different perspectives.

First of all, I love what's being proposed, however, I believe there are one or two things which could be done to make it even better.

1. The pedestrian pinch point between the betting shop and the railings by the traffic lights at the very 'entrance' to Dartmouth Road absolutely needs to be addressed (whether in this round of works or at a future date). This could be achieved, either by reshaping the kerbline or by finding some sort of agreement with the property owner to allow an engineered solution for the realignment of part of the front of their ground floor.

2. Dartmouth Road is an increasingly popular location for businesses whose needs for serviceability by large delivery vehicles cannot be understated. The proposed provision of inset loading bays is nowhere near enough. So, even though the proposals for the space fronting Heron House through to the Sylvan Post etc would be nicey-nicey in an ideal world, this is the only part of the road, except at the front of *Kingswear House, where there is real scope for on-footway temporary loading bays, which actually allow pedestrians to pass with a reasonable amount of space; and this needs U R G E N T consideration. I have the utmost confidence that your clever team can come up with a revised design (with loading facilities), which will retain a sense of space etc, to balance the unfortunate conundrum that Dartmouth Road is faced with at this particular time.
(* My reference to the front of Kingswear House is a separate can of worms so I will spare you that one for the moment).

May I respectfully suggest, due to the considerable stakeholding that I and my many good and varied tenants have in the immediate vicinity of this scheme, that you allow me to meet with your team to discuss my suggestions in more detail. I will make myself available at the drop of a hat.

Kind regards

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Then I realised I'd forgotten something.

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Hello again,

Please forgive me - I forgot to expand on the reasoning behind my suggestion No.2. I should have gone on to say that it would also, very importantly, allow the free flow of all traffic - including buses, which are frequently delayed here - in both directions even when lorries are loading/unloading.

I put it to you that these factors must take priority over the purely idealistic and aspirational designs, which are led by wanting to make the most perfect sitting-out areas. I repeat though - there is an easily achievable and attractive compromise with careful design.

Kind regards

This post was last modified: 15-01-2016 03:09 PM by Anotherjohn.

Thanks Anotherjohn. I hope you are right about it being about improving flow of vehicles rather than discouraging traffic as much as possible...

I think i'd like to see a proper traffic flow study to assess the wider impact, to try to pre-empt any 'unintended consequences', such as dramatically increased volumes of traffic suddenly being pushed onto residential streets further up the hill due to the effects of certain features of this plan....

Double yellow lines will certainly improve traffic flow, assuming cars don't park there any way. The main problem with traffic flow on Dartmouth Road is caused by buses or vans attempting to pass by parked vehicles.

The only problem with better traffic flow is it tends to lead to more vehicles, which eventually clog up the roads again.