Recently, I promised that I would report back from my recent walk around Carshalton Village with Council officers. To their credit, most issues were tackled straight away: to my shame, it’s taken me a while to report back. I’m still waiting to hear about Scawen Wall and fees in the local car parks but here’s the rest:

  1. Loading Bays in Carshalton High Street – The Council have asked TfL to look into making this mixed use, both loading and short stay parking.
  2. Planting in the High Street – The Council have asked TfL if they would support a community-led replanting and tidy up of the planters in front of the shops on Beacon Grove.
  3. Promoting Business in the Village – The new ‘Core Planning Strategy’ adopted by the Council on 7th December identifies Carshalton High Street as a ‘district’ centre. This gives us the ability to promote the development of Carshalton Village and support proposals which consolidate its role as a shopping centre. Now we just need the political leadership to go out and do the promoting.
  4. Blocked Drains – The drains in Talbot Road and Seymour Road were passed on to be cleaned and an additional gully put in opposite 36 Carshalton Place to avoid a pool forming at the crossing point.
  5. Railing Replacement at the corner of the High Street and The Square – TfL have been notified of the incorrect replacement outside the Coach & Horses.
  6. Lime Trees in The Square – These trees are to be pruned to reduce their width and overhang to gardens. They will also be thinned out to let more light through. The Council doesn’t plan to reduce them in height as Officers are concerned this will cause them to bush out in all directions, with loads of soft sappy growth that will produce even more sticky deposits.
  7. Mill Lane – The cobbled area is adopted highway rather than part of the new development so allowing for some tree planting pits to help ‘green up’ the area. This would be considered as part of the public realm money that is allocated to each area in the Borough for distribution by councillors, the earliest being 2011.
  8. Junctions with Carshalton Road – Officers agree that junction such as Cambridge Road are hazardous and would benefit from the short stretch of single red line that goes up these side roads to be upgraded to double red lines, thus removing parked cars from the end of the roads. TfL have been informed as roads with red lines are their responsibility.
  9. Yellow Lines around Ringstead Road, Croft Road, Meadow Road – This is not considered to be a high enough priority. We’ll keep on pushing for better sight lines in this area.
  10. Colston Avenue – This is being dealt with as part of a much larger batch of projects. Objections to the schemes in this wider area are being examined with any changes to the original plans to be made by February. Any work will start in February/March.
  11. Yellow Lines at junction of Blakehall/Salisbury Road – Again, this is being looked at as part of a batch, with consultation ending anytime now and implementation early January.

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