Town Centre Pedestrianisation

Greenwich Town Centre map

The Greenwich Society has examined the Council’s scheme to pedestrianise part of the Town Centre, with a long gyratory, and has serious concerns about the impact on buses and traffic (concerns shared, we understand, by Transport for London), and about the diversion of through traffic on to unsuitable residential roads. But we very much share the Council’s ambition to improve the pedestrian experience and environment in the Town Centre. For many years the Society has been trying to find a radical solution to the problem, but none has proved feasible. We now believe that a more modest scheme would achieve a substantial improvement without seriously disrupting through traffic.

The scheme is to restrict east-bound traffic to a single lane along College Approach and the first part of King William Walk; it is already fed by alternate single-lane flows by the traffic-lights from Creek Road and Greenwich Church Street, so there would be no delay to traffic. This would allow the north-side pavement along College Approach to be at least doubled in width, leaving room for (narrow) residents’ parking bays along the north side and unloading at off-peak times along the south side, as now. There would also be room to widen the King William Walk pavement; the details would need to be worked out to suit the new access to the Maritime Museum. ( Plans and a sketch-map by Peter Kent to illustrate the scheme).

At present the pedestrian route from the DLR crescent to the ORNC West Gate is extremely narrow and cluttered. Widening it would encourage visitors to head for the historic buildings, Museum and Park through the West Gate and College grounds past ‘Discover Greenwich’, a much more pleasant traffic-free route. Buses would not be affected. The whole scheme could be finished in time for the Olympics, at a fraction of the Council scheme’s cost.

We very much hope that the Council will examine this scheme seriously and adopt it as the best available solution, rather than leaving things as they are which on past experience is all too likely to happen.