After many months of chasing, I've now received the response below from the council regarding speeding concerns that many have raised with me.
Please see below for information. I've contacted the MPS to ask if we can arrange a community roadwatch and hope to have further updates soon. It so important Park Hill and Whitgift is safe for everyone.
"Dear Councillor Appleton,
Thank you for your email sent on behalf of your constituents concerning excessive vehicular speeds and poor driver behaviour on Park Hill Road and surrounding roads. Please accept my apologies for the delayed response.
I am sure you will agree that inappropriate driver speeds, is not only a safety concern, but also a menace; the plights of which likely go well beyond the boundaries of the London Borough of Croydon. Such actions cannot be condoned and should be appropriately addressed by the enforcement authority which in London is the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), Transport Policing Command and the City of London Police.
The council has the necessary legal powers to make Traffic Regulation Orders which control/regulate the movement of traffic and whilst some are enforceable by the local authority many moving traffic offences (including breaking the speed limit) can only be enforced by the Police.
The borough-wide 20 mph speed limit was introduced by the council in consultation and agreement with the Police a few years ago with the understanding that the MPS will continue to enforce at a level that they deem fit. Level of enforcement has always been set by the MPS and lowering of the speed limit in recent years has not changed this status quo in any way. Like so many other Government departments, limited resources available to the Police probably means that they have to set priorities for enforcing law and order accordingly. My understanding is that they carry out targeted enforcement from time to time at places where regular excessive speeding is known to them.
Furthermore, the council doesn’t have funds to support the introduction of speed management/compliance highway improvement measures. Ordinarily the council would make use Local Implementation Plan (LIP) funds allocated on an annual basis by TfL to the borough to investigate and implement if feasible highway improvement measures to address the concerns outlined in your enquiry. Due to the covid-19 pandemic and the consequential reduction in funding, the LIP programme had to be paused in March 2020 and replaced with a Streetspace for London Programme. Under this new programme a number of schemes were implemented during the pandemic some of which included healthy neighbourhoods, but funding wasn’t made available for other schemes like speed management/compliance measures.
The current funding allocation to boroughs is only up to the 11 December 2021 and all of this has been committed. TfL and central government are expected to enter into talks in the coming days to agree a new funding deal up to March 2022 and beyond. TfL is anticipating a return to long term transport investment programme from 2022/23 onwards.
In an attempt to restart the LIP programme and for this to form part of the a new funding discussion with the government, TfL has asked boroughs to submit a LIP Delivery Plan focusing on the coming financial year by December 2021, with suggestive programmes for subsequent 2 years. As part of our bid we are asking for funding to deliver schemes that encourage motorists to comply with the 20mph speed limit and improve road safety.
We don’t expect to receive a response to our bid until at least January 2022, the funding allocation we do get, if successful remains unknown until talks between TfL and central government have concluded. As such I am unable to commit to introducing any highway improvement measures the address speed compliance/management at the present time.
In the interim, there are other options available to help in situations like this some of which I have outlined below:
Option 1 – Community Roadwatch: we work in partnership with the MPS and TfL on many other speed management initiatives, including the Community Roadwatch project. This project aims to reduce speeding in residential areas and gives local residents the opportunity to work side by side with their local police teams, and use speed detection equipment to identify speeding vehicles in their communities. Local residents can monitor traffic speeds using laser guns and electronic display signs. The information gathered by you is than passed onto the MPS to target regular offenders for speed enforcement.
For further information on Community Roadwatch please click on the following weblink:
https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/safety-and-security/road-safety/community-roadwatch
To take part in the Community Roadwatch project please email [email protected]. The relevant local MPS Safer Transport Team will be in touch.
Option 2 – RoadSafeLondon: The public can report dangerous, illegal, or antisocial road user behaviour directly to the police with their online reporting tool. You can submit a report directly to the MPS for investigation and response by following the instructions on this weblink:
https://www.met.police.uk/roadsafelondon/
Every report helps the police and TfL to understand where and when bad road user behaviour takes place. The information and intelligence gathered may lead to a prosecution
I trust the above addresses response addresses your enquiry."
