Trees removed and seating in as Woolwich town centre work continues
Work along Powis Street continues as street furniture has begun to be installed and trees removed.
Trees have been removed to the west around Iceland and CEX.
Presumably their removal was necessitated by current work (disease found during inspection perhaps?) and replacements will be planted.
Further to the east and work is being undertaken around still-standing trees with new street furniture in place.
Extensive seating and benches will replacing circular benches installed in the 1990s.
To no great surprise those few sections finished are already seeing cars parked.
This happened as soon as the 2010s upgrade in parts of the town centre completed.
Alongside rubbish dumped on new surfaces parts are becoming an eyesore already exacerbated by bright, white paving materials chosen.
Meanwhile over on Barnard Close just off Powis Street things aren’t looking too good.
This wasn’t initially included in the Future High Streets project despite being a bit of a mess. A cheap job was then implemented with basic concrete raised planters which has seen planting die. New tarmac patches continue to appear. It’s a sorry looking area.
Many other issues raised during consultation have come to pass including the aforementioned parking and rubbish dumped on new paving. Poor enforcement is as evident as ever with another problem seen.
There’s a lack of space for an area of high footfall. The extent of new street furniture and planters exceeds previous levels pushing everyone into a relatively narrow space.
It can be a slow, tedious process making progress along the street with so many people squeezed into a narrow area. Of course it’s not finished yet and temporary fences will go, but previously submitted plans don’t appear to make the issue much better.
If you remember in the 1980s revamp many raised planters were installed (this image shows them in 1987) – then removed during the 1990s update which reduced clutter and obstacles.
Now they’re doing it all again.
Another thing to consider (well, I did though I’m not sure Greenwich or their consultants) is that a number of substantial developments off Powis Street are due to be built in future increasing footfall yet further.
Murray’s Yard is currently a dead end but will eventually lead hundreds if not thousands of residents to Powis Street shops and the DLR from MacBean Street new-builds.
There’s also Ropeyards coming soon with 660 homes. Some residents who want to use, say, the DLR will head along Powis Street via Murray’s Yard. As will those at the converted Riverside House and riverside Berkeley towers.
Oh, and the two student blocks on Beresford Street. PLus Mortgramit Square to the west will also see Powis Street as the main route to the DLR and other transport.
Of course some will walk via Beresford Street and if heading to the Elizabeth line won’t need to go near Powis Street, but for those seeking the DLR and other town centre transport – or just heading to Tesco as an example – they will probably head through Powis Street at some point.
So we’ll end up with an already busy shopping street seeing numerous developments in the vicinity and additional footfall while usable space is reduced.
Get it right
I’ve seen many Woolwich changes come and go (and I’m not that old!) and really want Greenwich council to get this right at last.
Woolwich is a town stuffed with potential and wonderful buildings. It’s fallen far behind town centre’s like Lewisham, Bexleyheath and Bromley but there’s still much there that could be improved.
Hopefully Greenwich can get on top of things as a formerly grotty public realm is already becoming a grotty new public realm.
About £20 million is being spent on the overall project (plus a few million more on the heritage project).
It’ll require very regular cleaning due to prior decisions made with materials alongside stronger parking enforcement and regular cleaning.
Whether they’re up to it remains to be seen. Cutting cleaning staff – despite insisting town centres won’t suffer – doesn’t bode well.
I have re-raised the crazy proposal to have a 2 way cycle between Hare Street and Macbean Street with TfL ans the council.
The landscaping and seating includes raised edges which will restrict the area available to pedestrians.
I have also raised the question of whether blind and partially sighted people have been concerned.
The cycle route plan does need to keep being raised.
Greenwich Council will however *not* want to include that as it means allocating funding from new developments which they’ve continuously failed to do a umber of times in the recent past – or at least anywhere near levels requested by TfL.
Many more developments are coming forward but Greenwich show no sign of changing tack to properly fund improvements that work well on a direct route away from busy shopping streets.
Without allocating further S106 and CIL, improving Woolwich High Street past the Waterfront for pedestrians, cyclists and buses to any great extent won’t happen. TfL also at fault here as they want to retain bus stands which cause other bus routes to get stuck in traffic.
Then in 5-10 years it’ll all be ripped up again to do it properly.
Even if they put a complete lock on cars using the street after dark, the outsized delivery bikes that cluster around GDK and McDonald’s are a constant feature past 6pm, which will greatly accelerate the darkening of the pavements. The obsession with street furniture is sadly something that Greenwich is too heavily invested in (like the giant BT billboard that blocks 2/3rds of the pavement along Shooters Hill – no reason to divert wheelchairs and pushchairs so close to the kerb).
Much like the designer of the new London double decker (the lack of top rear window means you can’t look behind to see if the interchange bus you need is behind you), the designers of this idyllic high street have likely never been to the site, let alone lived in the area. Big, bold plans tend to raise the area’s sense of self: the revamp to the town square and the giant TV screen lifted the whole place up after two decades of a condemned playground and broken water fountain. Small, half-hearted re-skins fade as soon as they’re applied. I do agree that Woolwich deserves a break and some respect but it is still a ways off for now.
Those trees were chopped down to make way for the massive benches. It’s a shame really. They were good big trees. There was nothing wrong with them.
Yeah shockin ow they chopped dahn them trees. Thass wot they done in greenwich park n all chopped the trees dahn for the new viewin area n there wasn’t nothin wrong with them, dissease iss juss an excuse wot they use. Ere are good to see the cars parkin. As someone who walks abahrt less likely to get run over by them than cyclists on ere nahadays.