I'm very impressed by Dawn Rahman, Lambeth Council's Transport Policy Manager, and I see that the equally impressive 'Lurking About SE11' is too - reporting excellent feedback provided in response to that site's suggestions on locations for docking stations.
Here are the throrough and sensible responses I received earlier to some suggestions I made:
a) Brook Drive towards CS7 end - plus on-street cycle parking for residents - unfortunately the end by CS7 is Southwark so I can't personally progress these but can mention them to TfL. I've also asked Richard Ambler about possible cycle stands on Brook Drive (again unfortunately it could only be the Lambeth side - such as we are tied to borough boundaries). In terms of removing car parking on the Lambeth end of Brook Drive, we did have a look at this previously but the parking stress seems quite high and we didn’t progress it. I think the fact that the one opposite the Imperial War museum is so close to the Lambeth portion of Brook Drive that we probably wont be able to take this one forward.
b) check out http://southeasteleven.blogspot.com/2010/10/new-london-cycle-hire-in-vauxhall.html which has useful suggestions, including in the comments
This was really interesting reading these. We did have a site planned on the public space between Oval and Kennington Park but we lost it at the implementation stage due to stat covers etc, which was a real shame. I keep re-looking at that area and I think the best option is to loose car parking on Kennington Oval (the end as near to the tube station as possible) - but not sure how popular this would be with residents- although according to our development control team the parking stats are very low in that area so I think this is a good suggestion and one I want to progress.
c) Right next door to secondary schools (as at Lilian Baylis on Kennington Lane) - encourage secondary school kids to cycle to school. London Nautical is in the area ((Stamford Street). Work with School Travel Plan Mgr to push into schools.
Had a look at London Nautical - but struggled to see sufficient space to fit a 20 bike docking point unfortunately. The only other option is much further down by the Coin Street building but then it is very close to the other docking station.
d) Belvedere Road - the private bit of road that the problem company Shirayama own, outside the restaurants. Get Yo Sushi and Locale on side, Plus ordinary cycle parking of course
Hmmm- we did discuss the problems of this road at a meeting today with TfL, and they said they would try to see if they can get any pressure put on the owners to make this road more 'cycle friendly' but I can't realistically see this happening in line with the TfL deadlines I have been given to progress new sites!
e) Royal Street for St Thomas' (with change to allow two way entrance to Royal Street etc.)
We looked at this site originally a couple of years ago, it would seem the whole area was due to be developed into flats for nurses etc so we weren’t able to go ahead with a site at the current time. I've just spoken with our planning section and they say that the initial plans have been put on hold due to financial constraints but that there are still possible plans to re-develop. But this might not happen for a while, so it wouldn't fit in with the tight timescales TfL are asking to progress the site currently. On the upside there should be one on the other side of the road in the hospital grounds going live very soon. I'm going to keep Royal Street on the agenda though as agree it is an ideal location. Will also speak to Richard A about the two way issues.
f) Lambeth Walk outside the large doctors practice - plus big push with staff there to get patients to use them.
I really like the idea of this one in terms of links to health etc for patients and will look at having this as a contingency site, due to the close proximity of the Lollard Street docking point. For some reason according to the usage figures from TfL Lollard Street is one of the least used sites. I'm unsure as to why this is not used that much as thought this would be a good location. It might be worth delving into why this one is not being used. Although I have asked TfL for some recent usage figures as the ones they provided were up to mid Sept, so it may have improved since then.
g) Kennington Road where there's no cycle parking although it'd probably be better just to put a Sheffield Stand outside every shop.
Unfortunately as this is red route we're not allowed to put any cycle parking in (frustratingly for us). I'll speak to TfL about this area again. We did progress a site close by on Windmill Row but there were too many objections and planning approval was not allowed. I think I'll have another look here as I'm conscious there is such a big gap in the network between the post office and the next one up by Kennington Cross.
h) Cottington Street - with ancillary permission measures . Again like the idea of this as might encourage both residents and users of northern line to jump off at Kennington but I just can't see where we could put it without taking up too much footway space. We could potentially get a small station on the area that acts as a division but TfL wont progress smaller sites anymore so I just don’t think we can fit a 20 docking point station.
i) Cleaver Square on Kennington Park Road entrance.
I actually went out on site with TfL to look at this one a couple of months ago. And a site is being put forward for planning permission in the next week or so. Unfortunately we couldn't get agreement on the Kennington Park Road entrance due to potential problems with vehicular access/turning etc so have gone for a site directly opposite the court (closeish to the Kennington Road entrance). This is currently housing owned land and means that we can get TfL to improve the current area (which looks a bit tired) with new paving and the relocation of cycle parking and benches. I really hope that this will be popular with residents
