Finchley Road works between Saturday 11 February 2012 and Sunday 19 February 2012

Your West Hampstead and Fortune Green councillors have received the following advice from Transport for London about yet more gas-related roadworks affecting Finchley Road, which we've set out  below. The bad news is that these works will be taking place between Saturday 11 February 2012 and Sunday 19 February 2012 and not just on those two dates as indicated on at least one other website.

Here's the information from TfL:

Transport for London (TfL) is writing to make you aware of the upcoming traffic management changes to the ongoing NGG scheme taking place at Finchley Road at the junction with Hendon Way.

Between Saturday 11 February 2012 and Sunday 19 February 2012 Finchley Road will be reduced to one lane southbound at Hendon Way.
TfL has worked hard with NGG to look at ways of keeping two lanes open, however there is simply not enough road space to allow this, without removing a traffic island and diverting a traffic movement. This latter option was carefully considered but rejected as it would be even more disruptive.

In liaison with TfL, NGG has agreed the to take the following steps to minimise disruption:

• Increasing the number of teams to three for this stage of the works
• Working further extended hours, seven days a week, up to 23:00 where this is possible within local environmental constraints
• Changing their normal work methodology

Through doing this NGG have reduced their programme duration for this stage from 4.5 weeks to 9 days. To further minimise disruption, works will be taking place over the half term, as traffic volumes are lower.

TfL anticipate vehicular disruption in the area and to mitigate this, mobile Variable Message Signs will be in use in the area to pre warn drivers of these works. TfL’s London Streets Traffic Control Centre (LSTCC) monitor London’s roads 24 hours a day, 7 days a week with the responsibility of keeping London moving. The operators in the LSTCC will monitor this location during the works and if necessary remotely put sophisticated timing plans onto our traffic signals to help ease congestion. TfL has worked closely with the London Boroughs of Barnet and Camden in order to reduce the impact of these works on road users, local people and businesses as far as possible.

I apologise in advance for any inconvenience that may be caused because of these. Should you require further information or an update during the delivery of these works please contact our Streets Customer Services department on 0845 305 1234 or via our website at www.tfl.gov.uk/contact

Snow - what Camden Council is doing

Here's the latest update sent to councillors about what Camden Council is doing on the snow:

Fortune Green Road at 9.30 Sunday morning

We received 10-15cm of snow between 6pm and 4am this morning. The forecast for today is dry and cold with no further snow.

Because we starting gritting early yesterday and carried this out throughout the evening all priority roads remained open and many side roads are also passable with care.

We will continue to grit priority roads throughout the day and evening as necessary.

Cleaning services remain suspended today with all staff redirected to snow clearance and pavement gritting. We will focus on priority areas such as hospital entrances and high footfall areas.

Refuse collection services have been suspended this morning so staff can assist clearing snow but we expect the service to resume by 2pm today. On Sundays we only collect from the main high roads so we are not expecting this to be a significant problem and we aim to catch up with the collections when the service is resumed.

All parks are now open, but some parks on the higher ground areas, such as Waterlow and in the Kilburn area, were opened later due to access difficulties.

Parking enforcement will be affected today.

North of Euston Road, main roads only will be enforced by both CCTV and on foot patrols. Main roads are bus routes.

South of Euston Road, bus lane and moving traffic contraventions will be enforced by CCTV and there will be on street foot patrol on main roads.

More detail on Camden's website at http://www.camden.gov.uk/ccm/content/transport-and-streets/clean-streets/winter-weather.en