The history
Better Brackenbury was a resident-led LBHF Council commission set up in 2021 to establish ways to significantly improve the neighbourhood for residents and local businesses.
It was sponsored by Brackenbury Residents Association, Hammersmith Grove Residents Association and the Safer Brackenbury Parents Group, all of whom had concerns about the volumes of unnecessary traffic coming through the neighbourhood and who were interested in suggesting ways to improve the street scene and the conservation area, creating better and greener places to sit and enjoy, better routes for pedestrians and cyclists and improved and safer junctions and crossings.
Issues also emerged about trying to find the means to mitigate the risks of street and basement flooding after a very heavy storm caused a lot of damage in July 2021 when some 150 or so properties in Brackenbury with basements had been affected.
Brendan Smith, the BRA Traffic Coordinator was asked to chair a working party and select contributors from resident, business and education volunteers to reflect a wide cross section of the community. The Working party was also supported through the process by a small number of council officers and assisted by some specialist consultants.
The outcome
The Working Party sat for approximately 9 months from the Autumn of 2021, until the Spring/Summer of 2022, meeting mostly virtually due to on-going Covid restrictions, and produced two reports. Suggestions were shared with the community along the way at a series of iterative drop-in sessions where detailed proposals were revealed and comments were noted and taken on board.
The first report focussed on recommending improvements across a range of streets and specific locations identified by the Working Party. The second concentrated upon the issues of street signage, often duplicated and untidy and sometimes out of date.
Here is the link to the Main Recommendations Report on the Better Brackenbury Project and the Signage Report link.
Both reports were well received by the Council and by the community.
Traffic proposals
The Working Party reconvened for a couple of further sessions around the beginning of 2023 to follow up these reports and to come up with a scheme to reduce through traffic, which had been noted as a major concern of residents. The Working Party held further drop-in sessions to consult on the prefered proposals of the Council to establish a ‘Clean Air Neighbourhood’ for Brackenbury which, using ANPR camera technology, would effectively have discouraged through traffic whilst enabling unfettered access for residents, businesses, their customers, visitors and tradesmen.
It would have been based on the model the Council had previously established successfully in South Fulham. The Council’s thinking was that this was a groundbreaking scheme using cameras rather than hard street closures with the main benefit that, unlike with other low traffic neighbourhood schemes, this did not affect local residents’ access in any way and was aimed essentially to keep commuter traffic out of the area. It was considered minimum pain for maximum gain.
The research that was done evidenced that approx 70% of the traffic on certain busy routes through the area did not originate in Hammersmith and Fulham and was only passing through. Brackenbury’s proximity to the Broadway and being in the centre of the borough exacerbated this. Sat Nav technology identifying the quickest route for drivers around clogged junctions and away from busy main roads was also a major factor in increasing traffic coming into our residential area.
The aim was to make significant cuts in through traffic, and to fulfil the recommendations set out in our reports, enabling the improvement of the public realm across the area by making road width reductions to widen pavements and create more public spaces and changing junctions, including the implementation of flood amelioration measures (SuDs) all of which would become possible with a reduction in through traffic and much quieter roads.
The Consultation ended early
However these traffic proposals, based on a camera scheme with the potential impact of penalising some drivers coming through with fines, were not well received in Brackenbury and were actively opposed by some members of the Working Party, encouraging others to do the same and who set up petitions against the scheme. The exemplar scheme in South Fulham had met significant vocal criticism from parts of that community who were typically opposed to traffic restrictions of any kind. This became very political and much widely-shared social media coverage influenced and soured our consultation in Brackenbury.
This affected the consultation to such an extent from the outset that the proposals were abandoned by the Council before the consultation process could be completed. The next stages of the consultation, with businesses in particular, would have included revealing detailed solutions specifically designed to facilitate access for suppliers and customers. Unfortunately the Council hadn’t explained and specifically dealt with the concerns of access for business suppliers and customers at the beginning of the process and, faced with strong opposition from local businesses and the residents who supported them, the consultation was terminated.
Perceptions had clearly changed since the pandemic and traffic volumes had fallen such that the need for traffic measures appeared to be less important or less relevant for many residents. The concept of registering visitors, business suppliers and irregular customers on line or by telephone to enable access through the cameras was also considered by many in the community to be an unnecessary burden.
The Working Party was wound up
As there was a clear lack of any consensus within the group on which to move forward, the Better Brackenbury Working Party was subsequently wound up. The consequence was that the proposals were all abandoned and no further progress has been made since.
Potential funding to make the recommendations a reality evaporated completely. This would have come from revenue under the traffic scheme derived from the fines of drivers whose vehicles were registered outside the borough. Although the scheme was not essentially intended as a revenue earning scheme, the serendipitous income derived from fines of unwitting or unobservant drivers coming through Brackenbury would inevitably have provided a revenue stream, even if this would have dwindled over time. This aspect of the proposals also divided opinions greatly.
A lasting template
The two main Reports reveal intriguingly what the future of Brackenbury might have been if all the proposals had been successfully received and implemented. They leave a template to further these aims more gradually in the longer term.
One of the things we have left as a legacy of our work is that we have continued to be part of the Council’s tree planting and greening initiative and have been involved in the placing of around 30 additional trees in the area over the past two years using the information gathered by members of Better Brackenbury.
BRA also continues regular dialogues with the Council on related matters such as flood prevention, the need for traffic measures to improve safety around schools and tree planting has a strong interest in maintaining standards within the conservation area.