Hounslow Council


Background and further information

At its 23 November 2005 Monitoring meeting, the Chiswick Area Committee received a comprehensive report titled Turnham Green Bus Priority and Traffic Scheme. This report presented the results of the consultation that had been undertaken on plans to improve traffic and transport management around Turnham Green, in parallel with proposals for improvements to the Green itself and to the Heathfield Terrace/Barley Mow area.

The report explained that the Council has received an increasing level of complaints regarding buses queuing on Sutton Lane North.  This road carries four bus routes (27, 272, E3, H91) totalling 20 to 30 buses per hour.  The turn into Chiswick High Road is problematic due to the junction’s geometry and competing traffic volumes. Northbound traffic is frequently delayed by buses waiting to make the right turn at the junction, and this causes delays to following buses.

The proposal that was the subject of the consultation involved the reversal of the direction of traffic flow on Town Hall Avenue and the rerouting of the bus services in order to eliminate queuing on Sutton Lane North. Northbound buses (27, 272, E3, H91) would use Town Hall Avenue, and southbound buses (272, E3, H91) would use Sutton Lane North.

The Committee noted that the scheme would be dependent on funding from Transport for London, which, at that time appeared likely to be forthcoming for 2006/07.  The Committee gave in-principle support to the scheme but requested that officers also consider another option, to use Town Hall Avenue as a two-way bus road.

In December 2005, TfL announced its borough funding settlement for 2006/07.  The Turnham Green scheme was not funded. There have been lengthy delays in progressing schemes involving traffic signals at several locations across the borough, due to changes in policy and process within TfL’s Traffic Infrastructure Division. TfL has acknowledged that its ability to progress schemes had fallen behind its commitments to the London boroughs, and indicated that it would be reasonably likely to be able to fund the Turnham Green scheme in 2007/08 and install the traffic signals in that year.

The Borough has included the Turnham Green scheme in its 2007/08 bus priority funding proposal, as its top priority project in that category. TfL’s announcement of its 2007/08 funding settlement is expected in late November 2006.

The Borough has, however, recently secured £45,000 for improvements to traffic management at Fromow’s Corner. It is therefore proposed to progress this small scheme, in advance of the major scheme that will hopefully be progressed in 2007/08. If funding can be secured, improvements to the junction of Sutton Lane North and Arlington Gardens could also be progressed in 2006/07.

In response to ongoing complaints about traffic management (and in particular the movement of buses) at Fromow’s Corner and along Sutton Lane North, and in view of the fact that no major change to bus routes will be possible before 2007/08 at the earliest, the current priority is to improve Fromow’s Corner, with a secondary priority to improve pedestrian access across the Arlington Gardens/Sutton Lane North junction. The need for an improved pedestrian route across the eastern end of Arlington Gardens had been identified several years ago as part of the Belmont School Safer Routes to School scheme, but had not been implemented.

In addition to improving the operation of buses on the existing routes, the proposed layout at Fromow's Corner would be navigable by buses on the new routes proposed under the substantive scheme, i.e. buses travelling southwards on Sutton Lane North and turning left into Heathfield Terrace (272, E3) or right into Wellesley Road (H91 westbound), and buses turning right from Wellesley Road into Heathfield Terrace (H91 eastbound).

Implementation of both the Fromow's Corner and Arlington Gardens schemes would be subject to the results of the local consultation, which will be reported back to the Area Committee on 6 December.  Implementation would also be subject to a safety audit and statutory consultation.