Lower Sloane Street / Royal Hospital Road - Pedestrian Improvements

Overview

The Council is proposing improvements to make it easier to cross the road at the traffic light-controlled junction of Royal Hospital Road with Lower Sloane Street, Pimlico Road and Chelsea Bridge Road. Currently there are no signalised pedestrian facilities at this junction site.

To allow for the new ‘Green Man’ pedestrian signals at this junction, the existing zebra crossing on Lower Sloane Street by Sloane Gardens and Holbein Mews will need to be converted to a signal-controlled pedestrian crossing. We are also planning to provide a new zebra crossing on Chelsea Bridge Road, near the entrance to the Chelsea Barracks development.

Ward councillors and Cllr Johnny Thalassites, Lead Member for Planning, Place and Environment, have listened carefully to requests from local residents and as a result, the Council has worked closely with Westminster City Council (WCC), the developer of the Chelsea Barracks site, Qatari Diar, and Transport for London (TfL) on these planned improvements.

Introducing new pedestrian phases at traffic lights on our busy urban streets, inevitably reduces capacity for vehicular traffic, including buses, and has the potential to create more queuing. Transport for London (TfL) manages the installation, operation and maintenance of all traffic signals in London, so we worked with TfL and its traffic modellers to ensure that any extra delays to traffic were kept to a minimum.

The traffic modelling determined that the existing zebra crossing on Lower Sloane Street by Holbein Mews would need to be changed to a signalised pedestrian crossing to allow it to be co-ordinated with the traffic signals at the main junction. Co-ordinating the crossing with the junction reduces delays for traffic travelling north and south along Lower Sloane Street and also provides the opportunity to add countdown timers for pedestrians using the crossing.

The overall impact of the scheme will be broadly neutral for the journey times of general traffic and buses. In the busiest morning hour some journey times will be slightly longer (by up to one minute) and others will be slightly quicker. In the busiest evening hour, all journey times through the junction are expected to increase slightly (by approximately 30 to 60 seconds).

The slight delays may lead some drivers to try to find alternative routes through the road network in the vicinity of the junction. Should the proposals go ahead, we will monitor traffic levels on the surrounding road network and consider mitigation measures if there is evidence of significantly increased traffic levels on the alternative routes.

Plans showing the proposed changes are provided in the 'Related' section at the bottom of this page. Please view these documents before completing the survey. A copy of the letter which the Council has sent to residents and businesses in the local area is also available in the 'Related' section at the bottom of this page.

Why your views matter

The Council wants to understand the views of residents, businesses and other key stakeholders, to ensure all views are considered to help inform these proposals. To do this, please view the plans showing the proposed changes, and complete the survey.

Council officers will consider all comments received in consultation with ward councillors and the Lead Member for Planning, Place and Environment before any final decisions are made.

This survey will run for a period of six weeks, and will close on Sunday 25 July. Information about how your data will be processed can be found at the end of the survey.

If you have any queries, require a paper copy of the background information on the website or require assistance in other languages, please contact Allan Evans using the contact details in the 'Contact' section of this page.