diamond geezer

Tuesday, August 09, 2022

Last summer I went for a walk across half of London's public footpath level crossings.

"London has ten public footpath level crossings, just ten, and half of them are in the London Borough of Havering. If you have three hours spare you can walk them all." (map)
Just in time, as it turns out, because a few weeks ago two of the five were permanently closed. If you want to cross the Overground between Emerson Park and Upminster you can no longer use a public footpath level crossing, because Network Rail asked to close them for safety reasons and the Secretary of State agreed.

What's astonishing is that Network Rail asked in 2016, and due process for agreeing that request took six years.

2016: Network Rail intend to close or modify 57 level crossings across Essex, Havering, Hertfordshire, Southend and Thurrock
2016: First round of public consultation
2016: Second round of public consultation
Sep 2018: Public inquiry opens
Feb 2019: Public inquiry closes
20th Jul 2020: Inspector publishes 559-page report
16th Mar 2022: Secretary of State publishes 62-page response, agreeing to close or modify 37 of the 57 level crossings
9th June 2022: The Network Rail (Essex and Others Level Crossing Reduction) Order 2022 is passed by government
30th June 2022: The Network Rail (Essex and Others Level Crossing Reduction) Order 2022 comes into effect
30th June 2022: Butts Lane and Woodhall Crescent level crossings permanently closed
Butts Lane (RM11 3NA) - closed

This one linked a suburban avenue to a suburban cul-de-sac north of Hornchurch. It crossed a straight stretch of single track with clear sight of the platform at Emerson Park station, but users of the crossing had to negotiate a stile on either side of the railway so it wasn't particularly accessible. Closing the crossing introduces a 750m detour, but in reality most people would just go a slightly different way, either via the station or crossing a former road bridge by St Andrew's Park. Residents of Maybush Close are more likely to be pleased that people won't be walking past their Essex-y piles any more.

The Inspector said: I conclude that the Secretary of State should include Butts Lane within the Order as the footbridge provides existing users of the crossing with a suitable and convenient alternative means of crossing the railway.
Woodhall Crescent (RM11 3ST) - closed

This one linked a suburban avenue to a suburban cul-de-sac northeast of Hornchurch. It crossed a cutting via a convoluted zigzag, and not just any cutting, this is the Hornchuch SSSI where the advance of Pleistocene ice sheets ground to a halt. The twisty passage and the chance to walk through a genuine geological anomaly made this my favourite foot crossing in the whole of London, but scientific curiosity cuts no odds and the closure went ahead anyway. Again there's a existing bridge nearby - that's on Wingletye Lane - and only a very immediate resident would ever need to make the full 430m detour. Damned shame though.

The Inspector said: Although users would be deprived of choice as a result of the closure of the crossing, they would be not be inconvenienced by that closure.
But it's not all bad news for Havering's public footpath level crossings. Two were never on the danger list and one was given a reprieve...

Eve's (RM14 2XH) - staying open

This one's on an obscure public footpath near North Ockendon, so obscure that when Network Rail did a 9-day survey in July 2016 they didn't record a single person using it. It was a slightly more useful footpath before the M25 scythed through less than 50m away, so this corner of a field is now more dominated by a thundering embankment than the single track railway to Grays. I got a real sense of "what the hell am I doing here?" when I came to cross it, so circumstance suggests it would have been fine to close this one. But no, because it turns out the alternative detour would have been just over a mile long, would have annoyed a farmer by sending people round two additional sides of his field, would have involved a substantial amount of road walking and would have necessitated the crossing of a dangerous roadbridge on Ockendon Road. It was this "inherently unsafe" bridge that eventually killed the proposal, and so this almost-pointless crossing lives on. The Essex Area Ramblers claim some credit for this.

The Inspector said: Although the proposed alternative would maintain an east/west means of crossing the railway it would be convoluted and counterintuitive to those current users who are likely to be inconvenienced by such a route in addition to that route being unsafe as users would be put at risk of collision with vehicles at the road bridge.
Had the closure of Eve's crossing gone ahead it would also have meant the extinguishing of Havering public footpath 252 but this survives - a decision which brings significant long term expense. The Lower Thames Crossing is due to sweep away from the M25 almost exactly here, so contractors are going to have to build a thin footbridge to lift the footpath over road and railway, obliterating the need for a level crossing at a stroke.

Amusingly the Secretary of State did agree to close the neighbouring Manor Farm public footpath level crossing which was completely severed by the construction of the M25 in 1982 but has never officially been closed... until now, 40 years later.

Other public footpath level crossing closures just outside London:
• Trinity Lane (Herts) - between Waltham Cross and Cheshunt [footbridge provided]
• Cadmore Lane (Herts) - between Waltham Cross and Cheshunt [replaced by footbridge in 2014]
• Whipps Farmers (Essex) - between Upminster and West Horndon [Havering footpath 179 also extinguished]
• No. 131 (Thurrock) - north of Purfleet alongside HS1 [700m detour to be provided]

Havering's surviving public footpath level crossings:
» Osbourne Road - between Romford and Emerson Park
» Brickfields - between Upminster and West Horndon
» Eve's - north of Ockendon (see above)

London's five other public footpath level crossings:
» Angerstein (Greenwich) - alleyway across freight line, separately reprieved from closure.
» Trumpers (Ealing) - also across a freight line, see Geoff's video here.
» Golf Links (Enfield) - along a minor footpath up Crews Hill way.
» Lincoln Road (Enfield) - south of Enfield Town, closed to road traffic in 2012.
» Bourneview (Croydon) - almost in Surrey, between Kenley and Whyteleafe.

posted 07:00 :