Lewisham borough begin work on pavement widening along Deptford High Street

Lewisham Council have this morning begun to widen pavements along Deptford High Street as part of measures to enable social distancing.

It’s welcome to see though continuous lines of barriers can prevent easy crossing and present a similar problem to guardrails. One to watch at various projects. Barriers prevent flexibility for crossing pedestrians and can encourage faster driving. There are gaps along Deptford High Street but parked vehicles could hamper crossing at those points.

Car use still seems high along the busy street.

A website was also launched this week highlighting work in other areas of Lewisham borough and asking the public for feedback on measures they’d like to see.

On the flip side Lewisham are not great with poor parking in places like Deptford and havn’t done a great job maintaining the street since expensive upgrade work. It’s also a conservation area and some building owners seem to be allowed to poorly maintain structures.

I know I sound like a broken record, but over in Greenwich the only action so far is one tweet and message on Facebook asking about possible measures after lockdown ends and no website to register opinions. People can reply on social media and hope that feeds back into the relevant department…

Lewisham borough will also benefit from TfL work to enable temporary measures on forthcoming cycle highway 4. That project ends almost as soon as it enters Greenwich borough.

Elsewhere in London work has been undertaken in Brixton:

New wider pavements and bus stops for safe social distancing in Brixton today. @MayorofLondon & @tfl working with @lambeth_council 👍👍#StreetspaceLDN pic.twitter.com/DktS0p3HCn

— Will Norman (@willnorman) May 7, 2020

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