Forum Topic

Weltje Road trail starts 07/10

First two weeks warning letter then fines.

Paul Brown ● 8d37 Comments

Should that be "trial" rather than "trail" ?

Richard Greenhough ● 8d

Maybe Hounslow should trial banning the use of Chiswick Lane and why not Chiswick High Road while they are at it, to anyone not registered in the Hounslow borough and start fining them too? Surely it is going to be so dangerous for bikes now at Chiswick Lane that they'll need to ban non-local traffic due to the increased traffic from the Weltje Road closure? Makes perfect sense no?

J Morse ● 8d

"Maybe Hounslow should trial banning the use of Chiswick Lane (A316) and why not Chiswick High Road (A315) while they are at it"I looked on the map and I couldn't see an A-road classification for Weltje Rd. Maybe I missed it.  If I did, what is the number?

Michael Robinson ● 8d

The signs on the council's artist’s impression seems to suggest an absolute ban on cars and low-flying motorbikes, somewhat at odds with the one-way sign further on. I assume the final arrangement will have various ‘Except for..’ additions underneath.

Peter Evans ● 8d

Signage at the A4 end of Rivercourt has No Entry Motor Vehicles with 'Except buses, taxis and permit holders' and a traffic enforcement camera sign.I'd expect Weltje at King St will be similar.

Michael Robinson ● 8d

That’s not what’s shown in what purports to be an LBHF image of the new arrangement on the main CW4 ‘News’. I suspect, as elsewhere with camera monitored ‘closures’, we’ll have more of the most confusing sign in the book, with an extended wodge of accompanying text, which many drivers will ignore or otherwise fail to obey.  This will provide income for the Council but not the safety the ‘closure’ appears to promise, when a landscaped barrier across the A4 end would do the job in one.

Peter Evans ● 8d

I drove down Weltje Road today, no signage yet that I could see, not even covered up signage ( and I was looking for anything that had changed recently).Maybe it will all come out tomorrow.Personally speaking, I find the signage telling you you can’t turn into some of the roads in the Orchard House school street area adequate to indicate there was some sort of prohibition in place. Clear sight lines to signage on South Parade, and additional signage on the roads you can’t drive down as well.Not always the case though, where I live near Wendell Park there is a school street, and it was obvious when you were approaching on certain streets, but very inadequate when approaching from other streets. Signage has now been improved massively (presumably after feedback/successful appeals)

Andrew Jones ● 7d

The image shown on chiswckw4 was generated by AI  ( it says this) so basically is bollocks. Tne only thing the matters is the signage in the real world.

Michael Robinson ● 7d

The traffic order comes into effect on 7 October but it can only be enforced when there is legal signage in the real world.There is no requirement for signage to go up immediately after a traffic order is in place. Indeed there were traffic orders published before Covid that took 6+ months before there was signage.Weltje is an experimental traffic order and a decision needs to be made within 18 months to make it permanent or remove it and the clock starts on 7 Oct.

Michael Robinson ● 7d

Hi Michael, yes of course. I only made the observation as I remember seeing covered up signs on South Parade prior to the School Street there coming into force.

Andrew Jones ● 7d

The image appears to have been taken from this leaflet from H&F distributed to residents:https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/read/71288541/weltje-road-traffic-scheme-leaflet-september-2026/1The signs are not changed from the ones in this document so the chances are they are accurate.

Anita Blake ● 7d

The signs in the picture in the H&F leaflet appear to be different, correctly displaying explanatory ‘Except for..’ text and shown set an angle for better visibility. The King Street cycle lane is also shown. The version shown on this site appears to be misleadingly wrong in several ways.  News editor to sort?

Peter Evans ● 7d

The image is AI slop - it doesn't show the signs that are needed to implement the traffic order.The signage on the AI image means only cycles can enter Weltje Rd.

Michael Robinson ● 7d

The wording on the pillars is unreadable in the original but the signs are clear enough. Everybody in this part of London must know by now that the flying motorcyclist is an access restriction.

Anita Blake ● 7d

No Entry Motor Vehicles sign now up at Weltje (with exception buses, taxis , access and permit holders)I wonder if chiswickw4 will be reporting if Hounslow did in fact object with an actual quote from Hounslow on their position.

Michael Robinson ● 6d

So the signs are in, I breezed past them yesterday evening and this morning.Can somebody tell me when the chaos is going to start becuase of them so I can go another way?

Paul James ● 5d

No apparent chaos, just the quiet accumulation of cash by the Council!If the signs include ‘Except for Access’, that would appear to allow school drops and collections and be the opposite of a ‘school street’.

Peter Evans ● 4d

>‘Except for Access’, that would appear to allow school drops and collections and be the opposite of a ‘school street’.The sign:Motor vehicles prohibited (red circle with a car and motorbike inside)White plate below:Except buses, taxies, access and permit holders.Blue plate below that:No thrugh route to A4. Access permitted for loading and parking.I've not checked it out but there must be a camera at the bottom to time exit to stop it being used as a rat run.

Paul James ● 4d

(also "school street" pedestrain and cycle zones are more restrictive, like no motor vehicles at all except permit holders, and have times posted on the sign)

Paul James ● 4d

Here's the full orderhttps://www.thegazette.co.uk/notice/5216302

Paul James ● 4d

The trial has got nothing to do with turning Weltje Road into a school street ( school streets are only restricted around the start and end of school days).It’s to stop non-LBHF residents from using it as a convenient cut through/rat run call it what you will.

Andrew Jones ● 4d

>It’s to stop non-LBHF residents from using it as a convenient cut through/rat run call it what you will.Well, really it's to reduce the danger at the junction with king street.

Paul James ● 4d

I know clarity isn't your strength, Paul, but it seems parents are no longer able to drop their kids off on Weltje, rather they need to idle on the less safe street in order for that to happen. So really, all your banging on about child safety is null and void.Correct?

David Lesniak ● 4d

>Correct?No.Hopefully it reduces stuff like this happening, and yeah, that driver of the van might be going down there for "access" but I think not given the speed they're trying to get to, wihc is pretty typical of people using a street as a rat run.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zy1YowxfX9gWe've got 18 months to see how it pans out, but my guess it will massively reduce the hazardous nature of that junction as caused by people turning into it, which is a good thing David.

Paul James ● 4d

But from what others say, it appears to allow vehicle access for all to drop off and collect school students, which is something generally discouraged elsewhere.Also, the use of ‘in and out’ cameras to give a time estimate to police ‘access’ has been called into question elsewhere, particularly if it’s a school student leaping in or out of a car which then whizzes/continues purposefully on its way.

Peter Evans ● 4d

https://www.lbhf.gov.uk/transport-and-roads/neighbourhood-improvement-programmes/trial-make-weltje-road-safer-and-quieterYes, you’re right, that’s one of several reasons for the trial. Traffic reduction is the way of improving safety and reducing accidents (hopefully!)

Andrew Jones ● 4d

Hammersmith’s leaflet to the public refers to the existing road closures onto the A4 as a good reason for treating their two roads the same, but then they don’t do so, preferring elaborate signage, permits, cameras and penalty payments instead of simply blocking up the A4 end as so successfully done elsewhere.

Peter Evans ● 4d

Just out of curiosity Peter, would you prefer Weltje Road to be closed to through traffic, and made 2 way , or would you prefer the existing one way street with no restrictions to come back?

Andrew Jones ● 4d

I’m all in favour of closing roads in the interests of safety, by which I mean actually closing. What I have doubts about are convoluted ersatz ‘closures’ that aren’t really and allow some people through but not others and, from the levels of penalty payments, clearly don’t function as I assume they’re intended.I also dispute generic ‘make the world a better place’ arguments that seem to resent useful roads that were built to go places, calling them ‘rat runs’, and wishing vehicular traffic would somehow evaporate. I accept that, left to itself, motor traffic will find its own way from place to place, increasingly aided by satnavs, and I guess that, if such a  journey becomes too tiresome, people will act accordingly. Equally, it could be said that the more ways there are to get from place to place the better, as the traffic is spread amongst them rather than concentrated. As for Weltje Road, it was never built nor intended to be a connection to and from the A4 and that connection should have been blocked years ago, as with many other such connections. If the present scheme is intended to have something of a trial period, maybe they should equally dump a couple of concrete blocks at the A4 end of Weltje and make it two-way for a while and see what happens.

Peter Evans ● 4d

>I’m all in favour of closing roads in the interests of safety,Just to say this road isn't closed.LTNs are often described as "closed roads", they're not of course, all the properties in them are accessable by motor vehicle, you just can't drive in one side and out the other.It's more accurate to say they are closed to through traffic, even if that's not true because people on bikes and on foot or not in a motor vehicle ARE traffic.

Paul James ● 4d

If bikes are traffic then the users should obey the rules, Paul. Simple, even for simpletons like you.

Simon Hayes ● 3d

Amen, Peter.Yesterday I saw some poor soul turn into Rivercourt Road from King Street. Given they then opted to reverse back out, across the cycle lane and into the two-way oncoming traffic, I presumed they realized there was no access to the A4. Or they mistook it for Weltje. They then crawled up to Weltje and turned left to, presumably, access the A4.There is nothing simple about these changes. And yet, the simplest solution is often the best. Go figure. One would think a two-way street, closed to the A4, with access only by Weltje residents would be the so-called safest option given it would reduce the crossings to the barest minimum. But as we all know, this isn't about safety. Far from it.

David Lesniak ● 3d

Thanks for replying Peter.Thinking a bit about what you've written, reduction of motorised vehicular traffic crossing the cycleway at the junction of King Street with Weltje Road can be achieved by blocking off Weltje Road and/or by restricting access to Weltje Road - that's obvious and not rocket science.I would expect that blocking Weltje Road to through motorised traffic would reduce the number of vehicles crossing the cycle way - true, each vehicle going into Weltje Road would end up crossing the cycleway twice as frequently, but the overall number of crossings would probably decrease compared to now, as LBHF resident motorists wouldn't be using Weltje Road to get to the A4.What I wonder is whether making Weltje 2-way ( and blocking off access to the A4) might in fact prove more hazardous than the current trial. Yes, as already mentioned you are likely to get fewer vehicles crossing the cycleway but the vehicles are now coming from both north and south and presumably vehicles exiting Weltje onto King Street might be going left or right.Your suggestion of dumping some blocks at the A4 end and seeing what happens would be interesting, but unlikely I suspect to happen.The other thing that councils putting in these schemes have to pay lip service to is what their residents think. I would imagine that the scheme that has been brought in is more popular with LBHF residents than an alternative scheme where access to the A4 is blocked off. It would be interesting to see which traffic reduction scheme Weltje Road residents would prefer ( and also if there is a significant difference in views between those who have motorised vehicles and those who don't). Don't suppose we'll find out though.

Andrew Jones ● 2d

"whether making Weltje 2-way ( and blocking off access to the A4) might in fact prove more hazardous than the current trial"Andrew, all you have to do is look at Rivercourt Road where this was done. It has been a two-way street for some months now. No access to the A4 (there never was) and no access from the A4.

David Lesniak ● 2d

Good point, I'd forgotten that it became 2-way at the same time access from the A4 was restricted.

Andrew Jones ● 2d

More concrete blocks at the A4 end of Rivercourt, then, to make things simpler!

Peter Evans ● 2d

Everyone is getting hung up on the current lack of signage and missed what was being highlighted. Chiswick Lane has become a ‘Car park’ since the restrictions started on Rivercourt Road. The timings of the traffic lights have been adjusted to help but made limited impact as since the junction with the High Road was redesigned the ability to have left/Straight and also right turn only lanes has been removed.  The effective closure of Weltje Road will now mean significant increased traffic to Chiswick Rooundabout which TFL have already stated is an issue and one that should have been addressed first.  The long and short is that Chiswick Lane will become gridlocked in both directions.  ‘A’ road or not the junctions were not designed to cope with the increase in traffic the cycle lane has displaced.

Karen Lang ● 1d