Proposed improvements to Camberwell town centre

Southwark Council have recently begun a public consultation into proposed improvements to the ‘public realm’ around Camberwell Green. There is an overview of the plans in this PDF [3MB], and more detailed maps are available at the consultation website.

In this post I’m going to point out a few of the more obvious changes that I noticed, with comments where I feel them useful. Hopefully in a future post we’ll get some more detailed commentary from Tom Leighton, who’s likely going to be somewhat more critical than I.

Map of Camberwell Green showing proposed improvements

Congestion around the bus stops outside Butterfly Walk has been addressed by relocating bus stop Q (35, 42, 45, 68, 345, 468) from outside McDonalds to the north side of the junction, outside the Green on C’well Rd. The pavement here will be extended to accommodate the extra passengers, and a new pedestrian crossing.

The pavement will also be extended from the corner of the junction where the Tiger sits, up past bus stop P outside Barclays Bank, to Butterfly Walk. Unfortunately, congestion around bus stop L, outside London Food & Wine on C’well Church St., hasn’t been similarly addressed with any pavement changes.

Traffic signals will be changed to allow right turns from Denmark Hill into Coldharbour Lane, and two-way traffic into Daneville Road. The pedestrian crossing near Orpheus Street has been moved further north, directly outside the entrance to Butterfly Walk. These two changes are aimed at making safer the area around Orpheus Street, previously noted as an accident blackspot, and where Esther Hartsilver was killed recently.

Sadly, there seems to be little further provision for safe cycling around the area. Small exceptions include a short cycle track turning southbound into Grove Lane, and a small cut-through to the leisure centre from Kimpton Road, where the new entrance to the parking spaces will be.

Another small step to making Camberwell Green junction safer in general is removing the right turn for buses onto Denmark Hill from C’well New Rd. I believe the eastbound 185 is the only bus that makes that turn, so it will be diverted along Medlar St.

There seems to be a preponderance of new taxi bays, for some reason. The bay outside Noodels [sic] City will be moved to outside FM Mangal, and new bays created outside Cruson.

The pavement outside the Hermits Cave will be extended, and the traffic lights outside removed. This is part of some changes that were already planned as part of the Pocket Spaces initiative — and already begun, in the case of Datchelor Place, as The Pigeon Hole are finding to their cost.

Overall I think these are broadly positive changes, although I’m a little disappointed by lack of proper considerations for cyclists — but then, as we don’t even get the TfL rental scheme here, I can only suppose that Southwark aren’t really interested in that.

Author: Peter

Long-time resident of Camberwell, author of this blog since July 2004.

55 thoughts on “Proposed improvements to Camberwell town centre”

  1. It’s good that there’s still a place for situationists in modern society.

    We went to see the Thomas Hirschhorn exhibition at SLG. It is interesting, but didn’t quite come off for me. Like he says in the program notes, creating destruction is difficult, or something.

    In the upstairs gallery there are a couple of videos. One of them lamenting the restrictions and discipline of primary school in Norway! The second (a 45 minute film) opened with Norwegians in pastel v‑necks discussing a beggar. We cut our losses at that point. Just a bit too posh for me.

  2. Tell you what is worth pedalling to, Gabe, the Serpentine and Serpentine 2, the new gallery in the old Napoleon Wars era magazine. These two exhibitions about ordinary people are extraordinary.

  3. I’ll give it a look, Dagmar, if the government sorts out the roads.

    We pedalled as far as Vauxhall Bridge to see the horse sculptures installed below the tide line. That’s worth a look. And then onward to the South Bank to the animatronic polar bear. Also worth a look.

    The cycling was just about OK. The youngest is 10 and navigated Camberwell Junction fairly assertively, but really it is not the place for kids…

  4. Try Burgess Park > Elephant > Waterloo > Vauxhall Bridge. Mind you, Walworth Road is narrow these days and a bit of a pinball journey.

    The Serpentine galleries are really really worth visiting at the moment. The trees will turn soon and Hyde Park is a large breath of fresh air in London.

    Cyclingly, there’s nothing nicer than bowling past Buckingham Palace on Sundays when there’s no traffic at all.

    Has anyone noticed any changes in the air of Camberwell under the new Labour government?

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