Residents must be consulted before sweeping traffic restrictions are imposed on our neighbourhood

Kingston Council is proposing a new School Street Zone around Coombe Girls School, using an Experimental Traffic Management Order (ETMO).

We support proportionate measures to tackle dangerous parking, congestion and inconsiderate driving outside schools. But this proposal goes far beyond the immediate area outside Coombe Girls.

The Council's own report proposes restrictions covering Darley Drive, Buxton Drive, Bakewell Way, Cromford Way, Matlock Way and Branksome Way – effectively creating a large restricted zone across several residential streets. The plans also provide for enforcement using ANPR cameras, with restrictions currently proposed between 8–9am and 2.45–3.45pm, Monday to Friday during school terms.

Most concerningly, the Council is seeking permission to introduce the scheme through an Experimental Traffic Management Order, meaning the scheme can be put into operation first and the statutory consultation effectively takes place while the experiment is already running. The report states that consultation would run during the experimental period, which could last between six and eighteen months.

For a scheme affecting so many residential roads and potentially changing how hundreds of residents, visitors, carers and local businesses move around the area, residents should have been properly consulted before the Council decided upon such a wide-reaching scheme.

The Council itself acknowledges that the reason for extending the restrictions beyond Darley Drive is specifically to influence the behaviour of parents before they get close to the school. That is a substantial intervention across the wider neighbourhood and should not be treated as a minor experimental change.

We, the undersigned, therefore call on Kingston Council to:

Reject the proposed Coombe Girls School Street Zone in its current form and not proceed with the proposed ETMO.

We ask the Council instead to carry out a full consultation with residents before any scheme is introduced, and to come back with a significantly more proportionate proposal focused on the genuine problems immediately around the school and Darley Drive.

Any measures should be evidence-led, targeted and developed with local residents – not imposed across an unnecessarily large area and consulted upon only after the restrictions have already begun.