News

The Addiscombe Carnival will be held on Sunday 25 July 2010 with the 'fair' being as Ashburton Park from 11am to 5pm. It would seem to again be coinciding with the presence of a funfair in the park.

This year the route of the procession has been extended back along Morland Road to a starting point at Woodside Green.

The proposed 20mph speed limit on Davidson Road was originally due to be discussed at the July 2009 meeting of the Traffic Management Committee, making one wonder why the deadline for objections was the 1st April. It never appeared on the agenda for that meeting but was on the Agenda for the October 2009 meeting. There had been just three objections to the scheme but it the light of those the six local councillors covering the area were consulted and it turned out that three didn't support the proposal, two thought it was too severe, and only one supported it. The report to the committee recommended that the 20mph proposal be revoked and hopefully the committee members accepted that recommendation.

The report to the committee persists in the suggestion that Davidson Road is 1.165 km long which would still seem to be an error. Looking at a map it would seem to be about a mile long and the AA journey planner certainly agrees.

I discovered this week that Addiscombe is to have its first carnival for about thirty years on this coming Sunday (26th July 2009).  I did remember hearing something about it earlier this year and looking at its web site but I had forgotten all about it. The web site doesn't seem to have been updated with any enthusiasm since then. Apparently there are some posters around and about. It merited all of one small paragraph in the Croydon Guardian. Anyway it seems it forms up in Morland Road and then departs at 11am, ending up in Ashburton Park where there various bits and bobs alongside the annual funfair that has been operating all week.

Perhaps the even bigger news for me is that I was actually able to read my own copy of the Croydon Guardian. For the second week running I've found it on the doormat. Those are the first two copies I've had in 2009, to add to the approximately three copies I received in 2008 (prior to that delivery was very reliable). I assume The Post, or as I call it The 'If you want to know the name of this paper, buy this weeks Croydon Advertiser', still exists but that hasn't been seen for a few months now.

Notices have appeared on lamp posts in Davidson Road advising of a proposed 20mph limit. As these notices are few and far between and may never be seen by residents, local paper deliveries have pretty much ceased (there were about three editions of the Croydon Guardian delivered in 2008 and The Post hasn't been seen much lately) and the Croydon Council website isn't much use for broadcasting this sort of information (and not much better even if you know the information is there), it isn't clear how residents are being consulted about this proposal. For info the text of the notice is:

PROPOSED 20 M.P.H. SPEED LIMIT IN DAVIDSON ROAD, CROYDON

1. NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that Croydon Council, proposes to make a Traffic Order under the relevant Sections of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, as amended, and all other enabling powers.

2. The general effect of the Order will be to prohibit any motor vehicle exceeding a speed of 20 miles per hour in Davidson Road.

3. A copy of the proposed Order, of the Council’s Statement of Reasons for proposing to make the Order and of a map indicating the lengths of roads to which the proposed Order relates can be inspected until the last day of a period of six weeks beginning with the date on which the Order is made or, as the case may be, the Council decides not to make the Order, during normal office hours on Mondays to Fridays inclusive at the “Access Croydon” facility, Taberner House, Park Lane, Croydon, Surrey.

4. Further information may be obtained by telephoning, Traffic and Road Safety Section, Regeneration and Infrastructure Division on 020 – 8726 7100 extension 62858.

5. Persons desiring to object to the proposed Order should send a statement in writing of their objection and the grounds thereof to the Order Making Section, Parking Services, Community Services, 9th Floor, South West Side, Taberner House, Park Lane, Croydon, CR9 1EN or emailing Parking.Design@croydon.gov.uk quoting the reference CS/PS/JGH/7/B4 by 1 April 2009.

6. The proposed Order is intended to introduce a speed limit of 20 mph in Davidson Road, Croydon. These measures should help reduce traffic speeds, provide more time for pedestrians to cross the road and improve road safety throughout the area, which should particularly benefit children, the elderly and those with mobility problems.

Tom Jeffrey
Executive Director of Community Services

Dated this 11 March 2009.

Not really news as it is so belated, but I thought I'd show a not terribly good photo of the Christmas lights on the stretch of the Lower Addiscombe Road west of the Cherry Orchard Road junction. As can be seen the lights are attached to lamp posts with one on the south side of the road near the Cherry Orchard Road junction and five on the north side of the road. I can't make up my mind whether they were really worth the effort, or if indeed they represent a token effort.

The Connect2 project won The People's £50 Million Lottery Giveaway with 42% of the 286,285 votes cast. This will mean the Croydon Parks Links project (or Croydon Park Links, they can't seem to make up their mind which it is) will benefit by £550,000. The money for Connect2 is being released over five years and I don't know if Croydon's money is also being phased over that time or comes as a lump sum. Hopefully Croydon Council will now actually start publicising the project properly and we will get to see exactly what they have in mind.

Croydon Parks Links is one of the seventy-nine schemes in the Connect2 project that is bidding for £50 million from The Big Lottery Fund in "The People's £50 Million Lottery Giveaway". The winner will be decided by public vote. Internet voting begins on the 26th November and telephone voting on the 7th December.

The Parks Links scheme envisages linking various parks in Croydon with safe walking and cycling routes. It is already proposed, when funding becomes available, to extend Addiscombe Railway Park to Blackhorse Lane tram stop but under the Parks Links scheme a path would continue alongside the tram line and so link up with Ashburton Park and South Norwood Country Park. Other proposals in the scheme are perhaps a little more tentative and vary in their viability. For example finding a route from Addiscombe Railway Park to Wandle Park might run into an obstacle in the form of the railway lines north of East Croydon station. On the other hand Park Hill and Lloyd Park could be linked by the existing Fairfield Path for walking with cycle routes using local roads and it would then be a matter of creating safe designated routes into the town centre.

I do like the idea if it can be implemented sensibly and I do think it is worth voting for Connect2.