Ripped-out: Drayton Park width restriction, criticised for being dangerous

• I’M pleased to see that the council will be launching a consultation on new plans for width restrictions at Drayton Park and Martineau Road, after the previous disastrously designed scheme in Drayton Park was ripped out.

I hope this means they have learned their lesson.  I share the concerns of residents who want to see measures that prevent heavy goods vehicles using the area as a through route between Blackstock Road and Holloway Road. However, the previous scheme was an ill-thought-out and badly-designed death-trap that caused accidents reaching into double figures.

The council was warned time and time again by the area’s then Liberal Democrat councillors Terry Stacy and Julie Horten that the signage at the width restriction was confusing, the layout was muddled and the overall design of the traffic-calming measure was dangerous.

Residents were unclear as to the purpose of the restriction and wondered whether it was just being used as a ploy to raise revenue from residents and visitors.

The measure did nothing but undermine residents’ confidence in the council’s ability to tackle the issue. So I am pleased to see new plans out for consultation, plans which are better thought out and less confusing. It will be interesting to see the results of the consultation.

What made the whole fiasco over the previous layout even worse was that the council issued more than 10,975 fines. This generated nearly half a million pounds for its coffers. Since the restriction was removed (to the clear delight of residents) the council has only managed to refund 1,005 of the people who were fined. The total value of the refund was £68,784, meaning that the council retained a nice tidy profit of £430,736. We keep getting told that money at the council is tight, and it needs to be imaginative in the ways it raises money but this is appalling.

The Labour council should have made much more of an effort to refund people their money after the scheme was abandoned.

NATHAN HILL Gillespie Road, N5