Harper Road - road narrowing

I live on Meadow Row, it’s a tiny road that leads from Rockingham street to New Kent Road. Myself and other residents were horrified around 6pm last night and (tonight) when 100s of vehicles came teaming down our little road to access NKR. Why we wondered? Someone mentioned roadworks on Harper rd.

I checked it out today and there were the work people undertaking the road narrowing. While this is being done no vehicles can travel down that bit of Harper rd. Southwark notices on lamp posts gave ‘alternative routes’ to get to NKR. None of them mentioned Meadow Row where vehicles have to go down to reach NKR. So for the last two days we have had hundreds of vehicles including large HGVs and trucks trundling down a tiny road that is clearly in appropriate and possibly unlawful? I think vehicles are barging through the ‘restricted’ road access on Bath Terrace, which I assume would stop them reaching Rockingham street and Meadow Row.

I didn’t understand the notice regarding access, once the roadworks are complete. One side of Harper rd has full access but the heading south traffic?, has the narrowed restrictive access.

I want to know if the restricted Harper rd access is going to mean massively increased traffic flow for Meadow Row. If that is the case, something will need to be done. It’s a tiny road. I wonder if this is what Southwark council intended?

Can anyone enlighten me?

Thank you.

To have increase in traffic down Meadow Row is bad enough if it's cars, but hgvs ..lorries.. Is another kettle of fish. As you say it's only a tiny street, did you contact highways inspectors at council? Ludicrous situation Rimby..

There is a width restriction on Bath terrace, however on the day the works started on Harper road, one of the post on Bath terrace has been knocked off, allowing all types and sizes of vehicles to get through.

I believe this will continue to happen until all the works are completed, including the width restrictions on Bath terrace.

The initial problem came from TfL, when the elephant roundabout was reinvented, vehicles couldn’t turn left into New Kent Rd from Newington Causeway, the only route was via Harper Road, which saw a massive increase of lorries coaches, bins carts zooming down day and night.

If you wish to bring up any issues, you can contact this lady, but not sure what help they will be at this time whilst the works take place...

Joanna Lesak

Project Manager – Highways (Transport)
Environment and Leisure

Southwark Council, PO Box 64529, London, SE1P 5LX
Tel: 020 7525 0127
Email: [email protected]

Went past the works earlier today.
By the looks of things it seems there is a width restriction on one side of the road going towards the OKR. The otherside of the road it appears to have no width restriction.
I can see vehicles who are too wide for the width restricted side just go round it .
Let see what happens .
It also looks like it will be open very soon.

I did contact the contract manager woman at Southwark council with my concerns and she reassured me that the changes in Harper Road will not have any impact on Meadow Row. Let’s see. I have seen lots of large vehicles including trucks breaching the restriction barriers in Bath Terrace.

I don’t drive. Can anyone tell me how vehicles get on to NKR from say approaching from London Bridge? I had no idea traffic could not get on to NKR from Newington Causeway. That seems the most logical. What were transport people thinking when they prevented this?

Aren’t the Harper Road works just temporary?
Once they’re finished, won’t your road be back to normal?

rimby wrote:

I don’t drive. Can anyone tell me how vehicles get on to NKR from say approaching from London Bridge? I had no idea traffic could not get on to NKR from Newington Causeway. That seems the most logical. What were transport people thinking when they prevented this?

Not sure of their underlying motive but removing the left turn from Newington Causeway onto NKR must have been a very deliberate part of the E&C roundabout re-modelling. I can only guess that they wanted to divert traffic to follow another route, which would have to be via Harper Road or Great Dover Street, and therefore relieve some pressure from the E&C junction.

.. .further to that, digging through the archives I found some useful insight from erstwhile mainstay of the SE1 forum, Perronetonian. See the 4th post on page 14 of the epic E&C re-design thread:

"New E&C road layout appears to be working?"

They go down Great Dover Street to get to the bricklayers arms and then head on from there.

New relevant traffic consultation has just opened - see https://consultations.southwark.gov.uk/environment-leisure/borough-road-healthy-streets/

- closes on 4 November.

Mostly about the Borough Road vicinity, but it suggests banning left turn from Borough High Street into Harper Road. (Incidentally diverting through traffic on to Trinity Street/Trinity Church Square/Brockham Street - but the council obviously believes that's someone else's problem they can 'consult' about next time round.)

Interesting to note 'average traffic speeds are high (at least 26 mph in Borough Road and 24 mph in Harper Road)'! Why don't they reduce the official speed limit to something odd like '16.33 mph' - it might make drivers actually notice it - at least while they try to work out by how much they can exceed it and get away with it!