Our meeting on December 2, 2019

We met on December 2, 2019, at 7.30 in the meeting room at Sutton United’s football ground.

1 Present were Ben, Charles, Colin, Dominic, John K, John P, Marcus (in the Chair) and Shirley. Apologies were received from Neil and Gary. Our thanks to John P for again making the excellent venue available.

2 We reviewed actions to be taken after the last meeting:

-there is still no response from Sustrans regarding the barrier(s) and the status of NCN20 through the borough. Marcus will be in touch with them again, via a different contact;

-Marcus’ post about using the TfL cycling infrastucture data project website will follow when the website is more reliable and our contributions will be of more value;

-there is no direct news yet from Subsea7 regarding cycling (Neil), although there is anecdotal evidence that there are keen cyclists there;

-the planned A4 Get Sutton Cycling / LCC posters are in the pipeline, scheduled to appear in the early spring to coincide with the seasonal growth in cycling.

3 Sutton Council and local road issues

-there have been relatively few consultations on local road schemes lately; our responses are mostly available on our website. The most important concern the Liveable Neighbourhoods bid, the Cycleway in the St Helier area and the Cycleway to Worcester Park.

-the next Sutton Council Cycle Forum is on December 18, when we will be represented by several members.

–Sutton Council’s Cycling Strategy: an update from LBS is long overdue. We have contacted Cllr Abellan.

-Helen Millier, from LBS, will be updating the TfL cycling data project with data from Sutton; she also attended training on the Propensity to Cycle Tool (PCT) for England and Wales.

-Sutton Council’s LIP proposals for 2020-2021 are on our website.

4 LCC Local Groups Forum has not met since our last GSC meeting; it will meet next on December 11.

5 Local news

–Carshalton Station: the dangerously inadequate signage on the cycle contraflow has still not been remedied, as promised by the relevant bodies at our site meeting over 2 months ago. National Rail appears to have done some work; to the best of our knowledge, Sutton Council and Govia Thameslink Railway (Southern) have not.

-concern has been expressed about the very poor quality of many of the road surfaces in the borough. A member has drawn our attention to a petition to Sutton Council about  Woodmansterne Rd: the petition says We want Woodmansterne Road to be made safe for all users: pedestrians, cyclists and motorists. We want the road to be resurfaced, road markings renewed and lighting improved.

-our website has a summary of the political parties’ proposals regarding cycling in the forthcoming general election.

6 Marcus asked for contributions for the local newsletter. It is currently sent to 341 email addresses, the overwhelming majority of which see the email opened.

7 Our next meeting is scheduled for Monday January 27, 2020 at a venue to be decided. See our website for further details in due course.

Presentation slides: 20191202MeetingPresentation.pdf (2.4Mb)