Wapping Bus Gate

Release of Traffic Calming Proposals

Tower Hamlets Council have released their consultation leaflet allowing residents to have their say on proposals to stop commuter traffic from using the streets of Wapping.

The PDF consultation leaflet can be found below - 

Consultation Leaflet.pdf

Please ensure you read through the entire Consultation Document and the options proposed in Survey at the end, for you to complete with your views on the recommendations. 

https://www.pclconsult.co.uk/towerhamlets/

The Council’s recommendations are just that – a recommendation.  There are other options that you can consider and propose in the Survey. To outline the key issues, we offer the following comments:

Q1 – Please ensure you complete this to allow the responses to be properly analysed by the Council’s consultants

Q2 -  Preferred Bus Gate Location: The preferred location of the Bus Gate is at the Western end of Wapping High Street.  This location reduces the impact on Residents in respect of side road closures and wider disruption, which the Eastern proposal would bring.

Q3 – The Council's recommendation is for the gate to operate 24/7 – certainly initially.  The reason for this, we are told, is that it easier to reduce the operation hours at a later stage to reflect Residents feedback and traffic movements.  To increase the gate’s operational hours from a lesser timeframe, would require a time consuming and complex process within the council. We also consider that operation 24/7 may help disrupt the road being used as a racetrack, particularly late at night by youngsters coming to Wapping to show off their supposed driving skills.

Q4 - The Council's recommendation is for only Buses and Cyclists to be allowed to use the Bus Gate. When the Ward Panel started our discussions with the Council, our aim was to stop the Commuter Traffic, not the local Residents from using our roads.  You have the option to recommend that Local Residents should be allowed  to register their vehicle number plate to give free movement through the bus gate at all times.

Q5 - This option covers access by Mopeds and Motorcycles

Q6 – Gives you the option to allow Taxis.  Regarding this option, we are aware that with the limitations of access at Wapping Station for people with heavy luggage, prams, in wheelchairs and other Residents with mobility difficulties, that Taxis are widely used. They are also important for our Restaurant Trade customers.

These recommendations ensure that all visitors/delivery vans/clients of local businesses will have access to all areas of Wapping. If the Western Bus Gate Location is chosen, then access into Wapping off the Highway down Glamis, Garnet and Wapping Lane, allows free movement of vehicles along Wapping High Street up to the Bus Gate.  Non-Residents/Deliveries etc requiring access to the West of the Bus Gate will need to leave the Highway at Vaughan Way.

Please find Bus Gate Q & A responses to residents comments - Bus Gate Q & A .pdf

The St Katharine and Wapping Safer Neighbourhood Ward Panel made a full presentation to Tower Hamlets Highway Department at our Meeting on 5^th December 2017 about the problems with Commuter Traffic rat-running through Wapping. Following that meeting the Highways Department agreed to undertake a full road traffic survey which took place in February 2018. Since then the Ward Panel have been following progress of the analysis and the proposals now drawn up to stop all through traffic.

Please do join officials from the Highways Department at the Drop-In Sessions on 23^rd March to help clarify any remaining issues you may have, prior to completing the survey. 10.00am - 12noon Eastern Location & 1.00pm - 3.00pm Western Location. 

Please share this consultation link with your local friends and residents. 

St Katharine & Wapping Safer Neighbourhood Ward Panel

(a non-political Group of Volunteers, working with the Police, Local Authority and Residents to make the Ward a Safer Place in which to live and work)