If there was ever a modern-day equivalent of the Emperor’s New Clothes then the “courtesy” crossings in the new road layout at Hackbridge is one of them.

Either the company involved with the design believes in what they have done, or they have deliberately managed to convince the officers and lead councillors that this is a good idea, in spite of all the evidence pointing to this being a very bad idea.

London Road, Hackbridge, is a main arterial route into London, carrying buses, coaches and articulated lorries. The road has been narrowed to a dangerous width, with the potential for a head-on smash now greatly increased. The formal pedestrian crossings, zebras, have been removed and replaced with ‘courtesy’ crossings, which are not in the Highway Code and have no legal status. Crossing there is no different to crossing at any other point in the road.

Even if this was a good idea, and I have yet to find one single resident of Hackbridge that speaks in favour of it, it has been very badly implemented.

The construction of it is poor, with severe bumps and the “cobbled” crossings extremely uncomfortable for cyclists to traverse and, when wet, the new crossings are lethal.

Full marks to civic engineers for pulling this one off, but maybe they have realised that they have been rumbled as all reference to the Hackbridge scheme appears to have been removed from their website.

Come on Sutton Council, wake up and realise that you have made a mistake, because one day that little boy in the crowd will shout out, “He’s not wearing any clothes”.

PETER MEAD
Wallington

 

 


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