Dulwich Hill Streets for People - Informal Consultation

Overview

Tell us what you think about our Streets for People proposals for the Dulwich Hill area.

What is Streets for People?

You have told us you want Southwark to be cleaner, greener and safer, with more open space, and pleasant, safe streets where people want to spend time.

Our streets have been dominated by parked cars for many years and we would like your help to change this so that streets can become places where people walk, talk, meet and where children play.

The way we’re going to do this is set out in our ‘Streets for People’ strategy. It describes how we will make our streets better so that everyone can enjoy them.

Vehicles contribute nearly half the air pollution in London. You’ve told us cleaning up our air and improving the local environment is important to you. So we need fewer cars on our streets.

We are working with our residents and businesses to make our streets serve the needs of people, not cars.

How do you plan to implement Streets for People?

We’re investing in a number of improvements that will help us ensure Southwark is a clean, green and safe borough. This includes things like safer routes to schools, planting more trees, and creating safer and better walking and cycling routes.

We are asking residents in each Southwark neighbourhood what improvements you would like on your streets.

Alongside this, we plan to put in place more local parking zones to cover the whole borough over the coming year.

Your area does not currently have a permit system, so we are launching a consultation to ask you how we can make this work best locally.

A permit scheme will help us reclaim space for our communities to connect, socialise and play, in an accessible, safe and pleasant environment.

What benefits could we see locally?

Over time your street will become greener, more pleasant, safer and cleaner. It will have more trees, wider pavements, places to stop, rest and chat, better cycling routes, more cycle hangars, and more. We want to hear your ideas. Potential benefits include:-

• Improved parking access for Camberwell Old and New cemeteries
• Traffic calming on Barry Road and Lordship Lane, with the opportunity to consider new road crossings
• Safer access to schools and nurseries on Goodrich Road, as well as Harris Academy
• Improve parking access at the southern end of Peckham Rye, ensuring residents are not impacted
• Making sure Southwark residents are not impacted by displaced parking when Lewisham's parking scheme comes into place

What do people think in areas where we’ve already done this?

We understand that you may have concerns about living in a parking zone, particularly if you own a car or have regular visitors that travel by car.

We have received many positive comments from residents after parking zones have been implemented, some of whom were initially anxious about the plans. Comments from Camberwell residents include:

"I am writing to say how delighted we are with the controlled parking zone (CPZ), and to apologise for the resistance to your plan from everyone in this house. It’s literally transformed the street – we very seldom use the car but when we do we can park without any difficulty at all and the street is now an open and peaceful place to live.”

"The environmental improvement is huge and an important boost to city living. Now that we have the CPZ in operation our streetscape has been transformed. We can park without difficulty and the appearance of the area has changed beyond recognition.”

We know that over 60% of households in the borough do not own a private vehicle and our aim is to ensure that they can benefit from less pollution and roads that are designed with everyone in mind.

What is a parking zone?

A parking zone is a network of local streets, which all come under one permit area. Local residents and businesses will need to buy a permit to be able to park their car on-street during the zone operating hours, but may park without a permit when the zone is not in operation.

Some parking zones in the borough operate all day and some just for a couple of hours in the middle of the day. We want to work with you to find the right approach for Dulwich Hill and will set out the pros and cons of different operating times on our consultation website.

During the consultation, we will also ask you about what street improvements you would like to see in your area.

We will also engage with local businesses about how we can support them, and how we can encourage people to spend more time in the area.

How much will parking cost?

For the average ULEZ compliant vehicle, permits cost £4.32 per week. Hybrid vehicles cost £2.88 and electric vehicles cost £1.44 per week.

Disabled badge holder’s permits cost 57p per week with free parking for Blue Badge holders in certain bays.

Visitor permit prices vary with full details on our website. Outside of the permit operating hours, your visitors may park for free.

For businesses, we can explore putting in short stay free bays to accommodate customers. When the permit scheme is not in operation, some free parking will be available.

What will the council do with the income?

The cost of the permit will be used to help maintain and improve our streets. Any surplus income will be used to support our work on improving air quality and road safety and tackling the climate emergency. For example it could fund important things we all rely on, such as safer crossings and pavement maintenance.

Proposed Dulwich Hill parking zone:

Why your views matter

We want your views on the Streets for People proposal in your area. In particular we want your input on what days and hours you would prefer the controlled parking to operate - it is important to answer these questions even if your own preference is not to have controlled parking.

There are other questions where you can suggest what you would like to see in places freed up by reduced parking - and tell us about any concerns you may have about implementing this on your street.

We would be grateful if you could take the time to review the proposal and let us know what you think via the online questionnaire.

There are also public meetings where you can come and talk one-to-one with council officers and councillors - book a place at https://dulwichhillsfp.eventbrite.co.uk 

Your views are really important to help us make sure the final design meets the needs of the local community.

What happens next

The responses to this consultation will be evaluated and will contribute to the final design phase. This will be submitted to the Cabinet Member for approval, subject to the outcome of statutory consultation.