Why have one type of street furniture when you can have three?

There’s a good example near Maze Hill station of Greenwich Council’s love of sticking street furniture up just about everywhere in clumsy, disparate styles.

What to avoid: Guidance is for uniformity

Street guidance is for uniformity of material and colour. Greenwich Council don’t tend to follow modern guidance.  They announced last year they will spend £75,000 training staff – when guidance is already available.

Numerous bollards installed to prevent cars instead of actual enforcement

The example shown in the main image is hardly unique across the authority. Black is recommended for street furniture though Greenwich often use timber which quickly ages.

Guidance

Varied types of street furniture and bollards can be fine if there’s some sort of rationale for it.

Cluttered street furniture at new development in Greenwich

No one wants dull uniformity with the same thing everywhere – though that is some way from the sloppy, hap-hazard intervention Highways all too often embark upon in the borough.

Courtesy Google. Abbey Wood estate

In a time of cuts its funny how money is always there for ever more clutter.

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J Smith

I've lived in south east London most of my life growing up in Greenwich borough and working in the area for many years. The site has contributors on occasion and we cover many different topics. Living and working in the area offers an insight into what is happening locally.

    8 thoughts on “Why have one type of street furniture when you can have three?

    • Interesting that the yellow bollards in your first picture were put there because cars constantly ignored the no entry sign in the picture and turned left into Park Vista.

      Instead of enforcement, capitualtion was the order of the day meaning that you can no longer turn right onto Maze Hill from Park Vista. This means the right turn has to be done from the lower road, inevitably blocking traffic there and causing more knock-on delays.

      So, more queues because of illegal driving and a lack of enforcement.

      Reply
    • It’s a complete and utter farce on the highest level; all this borough believes in is clutter and waste. How about we rejuvenate our tired neglected Public Realm? It’s cluttered with unsightly wooden decaying bollards and dangerous guardrails. Less clutter is better. Their priorities should be to upgrade our tired, decaying footpaths and roads.

      Using bollards to deter illegal parking is bonkers; a real deterrent would be enforcement and a revenue maker. It just shows our inept the parking strategy is in the Royal Borough. Clearly inadequate and not fit for purpose. Surprising if you managed this process rigorously in the first place you wouldn’t have half the problems you see on the roads daily. A stronger presence is needed. (CCTV for parking violations is a winner too). If any other London Borough can do it why can’t Greenwich? Most of these council contracts out their parking services and receive significant revenues back to fund much required projects i.e. Public Realm improvements for starters.

      Reply
    • Maybe if the traffic light sequence at the bottom of Maze Hill was not as short as it was changed to about fifteen years ago, coupled with the blocking of Woodland Crescent about five years ago drivers stuck on Maze Hill for so long might not have felt needed to resort to such desperate actions.

      Reply
    • Agreed with all the replies above!
      It beggers belief how your avarage resident can see the issues and sugguest reasonable solutions, yet the council who get paid a nice sum continually get it so wrong, and then waste further £’s on ‘improvements’ that are not much better!!!

      Reply
    • Seen the damage on the yellow Maze Hill/Park Vista plastic bollards? People just run them over in their cars.

      Reply
      • Yep they are a mess. Little foresight.

        Reply
    • The closed junction at Maze Hill/Park Vista could be a good place for another pocket park. Or maybe a bit too close to Greenwich Park…

      Reply
    • Another excellent exhibition of wooden bollards on Old Dover Road, at the top of Banchory Road. Parking spaces are marked out, people use them and there is no pavement parking problem. So it’s the obvious spot for RBG to stick a few wooden bollards in. They’re like the old Not the Nine O’Clock News sketch where Rowan Atkinson keeps putting more and more toilets into the mock-up of his new bathroom.

      Reply

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