Plan to make Coulgate Street one-way

Mark has been in touch to alert us about a public consultation currently underway, to make Coulgate Street one-way, to address road-safety problems that have led to fatal accidents in the area.

He writes:

Thought you might be interested in the plan I received from Lewisham Council regarding turning the Toad's Mouth / Degustation section of Coulgate Street into a one-way section with traffic no longer allowed in from the main road.

Reading your article regarding the station section of the road made me wonder how joined up the council thinking is on this location.

It occurs to me that the Degustation stretch could be part pedestrianised as proposed for the station part - perhaps more so as there are no residential addresses off this bit as far as i can tell, so perhaps ban parking and let the cafes spread out on to the street, leaving enough room for turning buses (if absolutely essential) and delivery access.

However... the real problem around here is over-parking and to lose coulgate street as a commuter parking area, which i would support, would have to go hand-in hand with a CPZ in the station locality in my opinion. I live nearby and know that once you move your car it is near impossible to get back even on the same street to park until late evening when the commuters have gone. Whilst I don't blame them for wanting to get to a zone 2 station and park for free, they do seriously clog the area now we have the overground and probaly contribute nothing to the local economy either.

So with that big proviso, the opportunity seems to exist to extend the part pedestrianisation to the whole length of coulgate street and raise the roadway to pavement level etc. having a bit of 'street frontage' onto the main road for cafe seating may help draw people into the shops nearer the station as well.

However reading the Lewisham letter i suspect all they have in mind is more coloured patches on the road (probably painted into the depths of the potholes) and lots of bollards and signs!

The consultation letter is below: