Catford gets £10 million to alter road network

The never-ending saga of altering the south circular and Catford’s one-way system took a step forward last week as £10 million was awarded from the Housing Infrastructure Fund to alter the road layout .

The press release states:

South Circular Road – Catford Town Centre, which removes the existing gyratory and re-aligns the South Circular to the South. As well as transport and active travel health benefits, the project underpins LB Lewisham’s and the Mayor of London’s ambition to deliver up to 2,700 new homes (potentially 1,500 on Council owned land and 1,200 on third party sites) and 5,000 new jobs at Catford

The funding comes from central government. No other south east London authorities won funding.

The plan is to move the south circular road south of Laurence House so it runs through the car park.

The road network around Lewisham Gateway also sees another £10 million. This may increase the complete absence of “affordable” homes planned (let alone social homes) but is this the taxpayer paying for improvements to protect developer margins?

Long term aspirations

Lewisham Council have long wanted to change to one-way system as part of plans to rejuvenate Catford town centre.

Plans have been extremely slow, and a decision to move forward was taken last July.

There’s a decent consultation website here on wider Catford plans. This is exactly what Greenwich Council should be doing in Plumstead, Abbey Wood  and other places.

Abbey Wood is currently in the middle of the process of a £10 million road upgrade of Harrow Manorway near Crossrail station, plus another £6 million on areas immediately around the station. But try to find any information online about it.

There’s very little and little consultation with local people. From the little that is available some big flaws seem apparent in otherwise good schemes. Similar to issues that have occurred on other schemes.

But they’ve not asked people for feedback so it seems avoidable mistakes will happen before more money is needed to rectify, or else the issues will linger for years.

There are separate plans, funded by TfL, to remove the one-way system in Greenwich town centre.