ORIGINAL EMAIL
Dear Department,
I am emailing you regarding residents corners over the current layout of yellow lines on Holly Hill & Eversley Park Road, Southgate N14.
The issue surrounds visibility when residents on Holly Hill exit onto Eversley Park Road.
Last year yellow lines were painted on all corners at this junction. Residents have expressed concern that these lines have led to an increase in near head on collisions at the junction, as not only do those speeding along Eversley Park Road approaching the Holly Hill junction fail to see those turning out, but children of nearby school and mothers clearly have trouble when crossing the road.
My enquiry here for residents is a simple one:
-Can Enfield Council look to shorten the yellow lines in place leading onto the junction (Holly Hill), and look to instead continue further the yellow lines along Eversley Park Road.
By doing this we will be able to achieve a suitable junction for the residents, who have to rush to exit their road. Let’s make this junction safe. I hope to hear from you soon.
RESPONSE:
Dear Cllr Ioannou
Thank you for passing on the views of residents on Holly Hill, who would like us to amend the layout of yellow lines at the junction with Eversley Park Road.
The lines were added in 2016, following a consultation exercise based on the drawing below:
The length of line shown on the main road matches the advice in the Highway Code directing drivers not to park within 10 metres of a junction. On busier roads, like Eversley Park Road, this is the standard length we seek to provide to afford reasonable visibility for emerging drivers without causing excessive loss of on-street parking capacity. Stripping long lengths of parking from the main road would likely have the unwanted side-effect of reducing drivers’ sense of enclosure and hence increasing traffic speeds.
Where lines extend back into minor side roads, we often propose a shorter length of line. In this case it is the presence of existing street features that results in lines that are slightly longer than typical. The presence of footway parking either side of Holly Hill suggests that the road is not wide enough to accommodate kerbside parking on both sides. On the northern side the footway parking terminates near the crossover for property 2a. On the southern side it terminates slightly further into the road, due to the presence of the cabinet in the footway. The yellow lines match the extent of the footway parking bays, reflecting that parking at the kerbside anywhere beyond the limits of the bays would either pose a hindrance to traffic or fall within the curving section of the bellmouth, where it is least wanted.
I believe that rationale still applies and given that the package of proposals was reported to decision-makers and approved no more than 2 years ago, I am not inclined to divert towards it, at this time, any of our fairly limited funding for yellow line work. For context, there are many junctions across the network where visibility problems are reported but, as yet, have had no yellow line treatment applied. It is hard to justify delaying these sites further to tinker with junctions we have already treated.
I acknowledge that Eversley Park Road carries relatively high levels of traffic and that the gradient can result in higher than average speeds. Our road safety team has been made aware of this correspondence and will seek to keep this matter under review. In terms of recent injury incidents, the mapping below suggests that Holly Hill is not a particular location for concern. Despite a cluster of incidents further north, Eversley Park Road overall is not among our sites in most urgent need of a road safety intervention. For these reasons I propose no further action at this time.