The new road junction of the five roads which converge in the middle of Dulwich Village has since its onset been a source of disquiet. In efforts to ensure the safety of cyclists many residents claim that if the new scheme, which so far has taken five months and has yet to be completed, ensures the safety of no road users whatsoever.
Court Lane residents held their own survey in 2016 before Southwark Council decided to proceed with the work. The remarkably high number of 138 residents contributed their opinions. There was overwhelming opposition to the junction changes and the respondents from Court Lane and Court Lane Gardens expressed a lack of confidence in Southwark Council's traffic modelling,
Southwark ignored all the residents’ findings except for one - that the railings around the pavement outside the Hamlet School should be retained. The Scheme called for their removal on safety grounds to cyclists. It was just as well that this aspect was retained as just a few weeks after the junction had opened, the railings had already been badly damaged by a vehicle crashing into them.
Court Lane and Court Lane Gardens’ residents, along with the Dulwich Society and other local residents’ associations have submitted responses to the recent SDG Traffic Study commissioned by Southwark Council. They highlight the dangerous nature of the redesigned Junction and reject Southwark’s claim that 10% of Dulwich Village residents commute to work by bicycle, which they say is a wild exaggeration and is not supported by any up-to-date or objective evidence. They also claim that as a result of changes to the junction, priority is given to the few cyclists and not for the many pedestrians, particularly schoolchildren who use the junction every school day. They claim that pedestrian safety, especially for schoolchildren, has been compromised, the speed of vehicle traffic has increased and aggression of drivers has created an effective battleground at the extended box-junction. They add that there is confusion both about the change of priority; and what the new traffic signals mean. The removal of the refuge at the bottom of Court Lane is a threat to pedestrian safety.
There was also criticism of the new layout from individual residents - ‘drivers often don't know where to go’...driving from Turney Rd to Calton Avenue is now at a very strange angle’, ‘the split pedestrian crossing is very strange and quite offputting as a driver when you see lots of people in the middle of the road. Why on earth was this done ?’
Southwark Council has informed residents that the junction has been designed following the guidance in London Cycle Design Standards with road-widths narrowed to 3.2 metres in order to protect cyclists. However, the resulting pavement build-out and removal of the refuge has created a blind spot and makes crossing the road at the bottom of Court Lane dangerous for all pedestrians. It also results in cyclists using the newly-widened pavement and jumping the lights.
