The difference between June and September
Lambeth Council has restricted traffic on the roads going through and surrounding Kennington Park Estate and called it Kennington Oval Reimagined. We – the residents – are campaigning to Reclaim Kennington Oval.
Lambeth’s objectives of healthy neighbourhoods, improved air quality, traffic reduction, increased cycling and walking, and safer streets are all admirable.
Sadly, the way they are implementing them is not.
Major traffic-heavy roads encircle Oval cricket ground and Kennington Park Estate, but it is the quiet streets within that circle which are now subject to wide-ranging controls.
The pollution, noise and poor air quality from the major roads will continue unabated.
With school streets at either end denying access for two hours a day, large planters taking up half the width of the narrow streets and new double yellow lines, residents’ lives are being severely disrupted.
There is only one narrow access road into most of the Estate. Large vehicles are getting stuck there on a regular basis, and other traffic, including emergency vehicles, must queue behind them.
Taxi drivers are reluctant to enter the Estate along that narrow road, meaning hospital appointments and travel arrangements are being missed, and passengers with luggage or the weekly shop have been dumped at a distance from their homes. Deliveries have become a matter of chance. Health professionals can’t make urgent home visits. Contractors and operatives are deterred from entering the Estate, and emergency callouts early in the day are often delayed.
Many residents are elderly and/or disabled and rely on taxis, food and medical supply deliveries, carers, and family or friend visitors.
Speeding e-bikers love the empty streets. So do Kia Oval’s cricket fans who can now spread out around the area before and after matches. But parents are loath to let their children play there, not when there’s play equipment within the Estate’s enclosed courtyards. Kennington Park Estate residents enjoy a green environment, with a community garden and many mature trees and bushes, much in contrast to the unkempt graffiti-covered planters in the empty ‘play’ streets.
School and play streets are a great idea if it means reducing vehicle emissions, but not if small nursery or year 1 children are expected to walk a long distance, or if there is nowhere to stop for those who can’t use public transport or whose parents are on the way to work.
We would love to live in a healthy neighbourhood. But the Council has picked the wrong roads for its project and we want our neighbourhood back.
Consultation on the Emergency Traffic Order restricting our streets ends on 3 December 2024. https://haveyoursay.lambeth.gov.uk/en-GB/projects/kennington-oval/4
Sign our petition calling on the Council to remove these obstacles so that we can reclaim Kennington Oval for our community and its residents.
