Monday 7 October 2019

100 up!


Many congratulations to our oldest resident Enid Gray who will be celebrating a significant birthday
on Thursday 10th October. This very special lady will be 100 years old on that day.

Enid has lived in Temple Street since the late 1930s and her mother-in-law was actually born at
number 46 so no one can claim to have a better connection with the street. She and her husband
Reg ran a very successful hairdressers at number 23 and later at number 37 – you can read all about
her life here in the Temple Street Irregular.

Many happy returns Enid!

Enid –Temple Street's oldest resident


Read about Enid's life here

Saturday 14 September 2019

'You shouldn't have to breathe someone else's pollution'

Dr Jordan White, a data scientist with air quality experts EarthSense, has looked at the current situation in Temple Street and given his view. 'Shutting it off is a really good idea,' he says, 'you shouldn't have to breathe somebody else's pollution.'

He was talking on Neil Pringle's Breakfast Show on BBC Radio Sussex on Thursday – earlier in the show two Temple Street residents, Amanda Baxter  and Karen Boyd, told listeners about the current Rat Run Effect and consequent high pollution levels in the road. You can hear them talking here

Dr Jordan is featured a little later and you can hear him here

And please remember the public meeting about shutting off The Rat Run of Temple Street – upstairs at The Temple Bar, on the corner of Temple Street and Western Road, at 6.30 on Monday 16th August to hear the views of residents and what the Council is prepared to do about the situation.


Tuesday 3 September 2019

'Our street is a street canyon'

Calling all residents who would like Temple Street to become a safer, healthier, quieter road – please mark 6.30pm Monday 16th September in your diaries, and hear everyone's views on permanently closing Temple Street to non-residential traffic. We have reserved the upstairs room in the Temple Bar on Monday 16th September at 18.30 hrs. We will be there until 19.45 hrs, so please do come along if you are free to hear the debate and hopefully listen to what the council is able to do.

 

Our two local Green Regency Councillors, Alex Phillips and Tom Druitt, have been invited, as well as Andrew Westwood, Head of Transport Management, and Mark Prior, Assistant Director of City Transport.

 

This update on the state of play so far has been written by Aidan (7 Temple Street); Ian (12); Gavin (16); Karen (17) and June (20).

Summer 2019 – a brief respite from the incessant noise

A number of issues have been highlighted since we started campaigning: 

1) The first is very serious and related to pollution and air quality on Temple Street. According to the MappAir100 by EarthSense information shown on the BBC website, Temple Street has a score of 3 out of 6 for nitrogen dioxide levels, which exceeds the annual legal limit, with long-term health concerns for people spending long periods in these conditions. Surrounding streets, such as Norfolk Road, Borough Street, Spring Street, Lansdowne Place and even Western Road score 1 out of 6, with the average for Brighton and Hove also 1 out of 6. This is alarming stuff! We have asked the council to urgently act and even asked them not to reopen Temple Street because of the health risk, but to no avail. Our street is a street canyon (tall houses and narrow width, with nowhere for the toxic fumes to go). The fact that we score 3 out of 6 is a grave concern for us all, and we need the road closed to bring the level down. 

2) The council could have kept the road closed for up to 18 months, but chose to reopen it, despite us alerting officers and councillors to the pollution problem. We are therefore back to square one with the Deliveroo bikes racing up the road, speeding cars and taxis, as well as very many vans and lorries using the street as a cut through. This is extremely disappointing as the roadworks are in place along Montpelier Road for 8 months, meaning the road could have been kept closed whilst they were carried out and the council assessed the impact of the closure on traffic flow on neighbouring roads. They chose to ignore our request. 

3) The temporary closure proved that a permanent one would work. We no longer had non-stop traffic racing up the street, but residents and visitors could still park outside houses and deliveries could still be made to homes on the street. Traffic moved fine on surrounding streets, which was a concern highlighted by the council. We saw the temporary closure as a trial - if it worked, it should be implemented, and it did work, very effectively. 

4) Taxi drivers all know that Temple Street is a rat run. They regularly use it as a fast route to the station as it is quicker than waiting at the lights on Western Road. They have been doing this for decades and will continue to do so unless the council acts. They are turning a blind eye to this well-known use of the road by B&H taxis.

5) The motorbike delivery drivers are noisy and non-stop, driving at speeds of 40+mph and even mounting the pavement to access the street when closed. This situation is worsening as demand for takeaway deliveries increases, particularly as there are so many takeaways on Preston Street and Western Road using the likes of Deliveroo to deliver across the city. The motorbike/scooter park at the bottom of the street was opened without consultation with the residents and is clearly a key cause of the issues. 

6) Vans, lorries and HGVs all use the street, yet they have no need to drive up it. Many of these work vehicles are not local or delivering to the street, just using Temple Street as a convenient cut through, sometimes even as a GPS shortcut, rather than considering the impact that they are having on residents' quality of life. Deliveries that are made by Tesco, etc, frequently block the road too, causing beeping from frustrated drivers and jams behind them as the road is not wide enough to allow traffic to pass. 

7) The noise from traffic is incessant. We are in a conservation area, with houses built in the 1800s. We are therefore not living on a street built to carry the traffic volumes we are seeing today. The road and pavements are narrow. No one has double glazed windows or front gardens and the noise really carries, particularly when a lorry or motorbike drives by. Endless toxins and fumes are being emitted causing us all to inhale life-changing pollutants. If we can close the street, traffic noise will virtually end and environmental damage will drop dramatically, allowing us to return to opening windows as when the street was closed. 

8) Crossing the road is hazardous. Families with children live in fear that they will be hit by a speeding vehicle and elderly and disabled residents are at risk when struggling across the road or getting in and out of their cars. Our parked cars are so close to the speeding traffic that getting small children in and out of cars is an accident waiting to happen. 

9) The council is not worried about safety. We have warned them about the dangers associated with the traffic volumes and speed on the street, but we have been told we need there to have been three serious accidents before they will spend any money on traffic calming. We want them to be proactive and act before this happens, rather than react once people are seriously injured. 

10) No one knows whether the street is one or two way now. The council has failed to clarify the situation, deciding to reopen the street without warning a few days ago. We are now seeing vehicles travel both up and down the street, with many near misses when they come face to face, as many drivers are not aware that it is back to one way. The decision to make the road one-way northbound with traffic parked on both sides is outdated and does not work in today’s traffic. We are unfortunately being penalised for being the last road northbound before the Western Road lights and this needs to change. 


We have a paper petition signed by 43 households out of 54 on the electoral register and an online petition signed by 159 people, showing the overwhelming support for the permanent closure. If you still feel this way and have had enough of the traffic problem on the street, please do join us in the Temple Bar and show your continuing support. We need to prove to the council that the closure is a move that everyone is strongly in favour of. 

Many thanks for reading this. We hope to see you all in the Temple Bar next month.

Saturday 29 June 2019

Goodbye to dangerous traffic?

Who needs all this traffic roaring up our road from Western Road, using Temple Street as a convenient short cut to Seven Dials and beyond? It's causing  pollution, hold-ups, constant vehicle noise and most importantly, a danger to residents.

The recent temporary closure of the south end has shown what a difference that would make to our lives.

Could we make this closure a permanent one?

 If you would like to see it happen, please sign the online petition to Brighton and Hove Council started by Temple Street resident Karen Boyd. 

You'll find it here: Temple Street Petition

Please sign now and help improve the quality of life in our Street!

Peace in our time – can we make this permanent?

The text of the petition reads:

We the undersigned petition Brighton & Hove Council to permanently close Temple Street (BN1 3BH) at the junction of Western Road and make it two way from the top, allowing access for residents only (and delivery to houses on the street) from Montpelier Place. The road has already been closed on a temporary basis to try and stop the high levels of traffic travelling up it, with this working very effectively and greatly appreciated by people living on the street. The quality of lives of Temple Street residents has long been detrimentally affected by the use of Temple Street as a rat run. We are therefore asking for the temporary closure to be made permanent.

Temple Street has been used as a rat run for many years, with drivers cutting up it to avoid sitting at the traffic lights at the Western Road/Montpelier Road junction. It is a narrow, one-way street, with many young families and older residents living on it. It is purely residential and there is little reason for vehicles other than those owned by people wanting to access their homes (and visitors) needing to drive up it, yet it is used by taxis, HGVs, vans, motorbikes, cars and daytrippers as a cut-through. The very many non-residents that race up it every day are doing so to save time, often driving above the speed limit to find a quick route north towards Seven Dials or the station. There are no front gardens on Temple Street and the pavement is narrow, meaning that it is therefore dangerous getting in and out of parked cars, with the number of vehicles travelling up the road at speed.

The road has been temporarily closed off since 17 June as too many vehicles, including HGVs, taxis and motorbikes, were using it due to the SGN roadworks being in place for 38 weeks on Montpelier Road. This new scheme is working very effectively and we are therefore petitioning Brighton & Hove Council to make this a permanent closure, like the closure on similar roads in the area (Spring Street and Castle Street) in order to make the street safer, quieter and less polluted. We’d like to see this happen now while the road is already closed, rather than wait for an accident to occur and prompt the council to take action.

The proposed permanent closure would be cheap to implement as it would just require a sign at the top saying Access Only and a barrier at the bottom (for emergency vehicles to gain access if needed). The suspension of a couple of pay parking bays at the bottom (to allow larger delivery vehicles to turn) would also be needed. Residents and delivery vans have been accessing the street without issue since 17 June, so the residents would like to see this continue in order to improve quality of life and make the street a safer place to live.

There would be no knock-on effect if the road is permanently closed as Borough Street and Norfolk Road do not see traffic travelling up them. There are many other wider, 2-way roads in the area that are better suited to cope with the volume of northbound traffic that Temple Street endures, such as York Road, Lansdowne Place, Brunswick Place, Holland Road and Montpelier Road. With Temple Street positioned as the last northbound road before the lights next to Montpelier Road, it is inevitable that it will continue to be used as a rat run by significant volumes of traffic unless the council intervenes and allows a temporary scheme that is already in place to be made permanent.

Please sign it as soon as possible - the petition closes on 24 July 2019.