Streetlife

Hi Jo P, Andy B and fellow Streetlifers,

The meeting was very well attended.  Some people were late due to the traffic problems at the partially closed Greyhound Lane bridge.

The gentleman from the project company hired from Network Rail explained that planning for this work has been going on for over a year between Department for Transport, LB of Lambeth, Transport for London, Network Rail and Southern Rail.  2,000 letters were sent out in July or August (? He was not sure).

Many attendees reported that they had not received any notification and only found out about the works by chance.  The gentleman said he was very, very ,very sorry. But the work needed to go ahead as Streatham was in line with 14 other stations to be developed and it has to be done at this time in this order otherwise everything falls out of sync.

The bridge is 100 years old and needs to be demolished so that the platforms can be extended on the Homebase side to allow 10 coach trains at the station in the future.  This is why area is closed off for 6 months apart from a temporary footbridge throughout the duration.

I don’t think any of the organisations realised how much inconvenience this is going to cause local people and how much people feel let down by not being consulted properly.  Local businesses reported  50% drop already with the partial closure of the bridge and are going to find it extremely hard to continue with potential customers being diverted away from the area until June 2013. 

Transport for London were invited to the meeting but didn’t have a representative.  All the traffic issues were discussed and suggested by TFL prior to the works being given the go ahead. 

We were promised a website that would give all details of the works with regular updates and email address to send in complaints but I cannot find anything on the web since the meeting.  I thought that if you put ‘greyhound bridge closure’ that information should be found easily.    

This isn’t everything that was discussed at the meeting but I hope it is still helpful.