Update on Pancras Rd...From Cllr Sarah Hayward and Assistant Director of Transport Sam Monck.

Cllr Sarah Hayward 

See the email below from our Assistant Director in charge of transport which sets out the detail. Apparently PCO have been very involved in discussions around the scale and length of works in the King’s Cross area – so you might want to nudge them to better share info with drivers who operate in the area. The planned works are extensive and continue up to and in all likelihood beyond the Olympics in one guise or another.

With the junction works are Euston Road and both Pancras Road and York Way there are still some funding issues with TfL which could impact the timescales.

On the PHVs dropping off – the stop time is 5 minutes – and we’ve issued 150 PCNs in the last three months. Clearly we’re not going to catch everyone but they are trying. If there are issues at a particular time of day let me know and I’ll feed this info in so that we can better target our enforcement officers to dealing with the problem. I imagine given volumes of traffic about 2 PCNs per day doesn’t feel like a high likelihood of being caught.

I can’t provide pain free answers to you guys on this – the scale of the redevelopment is just too big!! But I will continue to try and help where I can.

Sorry not to provide more encouraging news…….

Sarah.

Councillor

As requested, a quick update on Pancras Rd. 
I’ll set out firstly the enforcement side and then the works programme.

The drop off bay on the western side of Pancras Road is a time limited bay for the purposes of picking up/dropping off passengers.  Any vehicle is subject to 5 minutes continuous observation.  Loading/unloading is not permitted.  This was implemented at special request by the Police due to the fact that there are security risks associated with the location being an international rail hub. We are enforcing using visits from on-street CEOs. Since the last letter to you (17/06/11) we have issued 150 PCN's in Pancras Road to date. 




As a result of the works that have been ongoing we are undertaking a full site check of the road, with a view to identifying any remedial actions that may be required for ongoing effective enforcement.


In terms of planned works, these remain extensive with significant disruption as a result. Currently, the contractor BAM Nutall on behalf of the developer Argent and the UK gas supplier are relocating and renewing a large Gas controlling station that steps down medium pressure gas from the National Grid to a usable low pressure gas that will supply the development and the surrounding area. The task is a large scale Civil Engineering project in itself and subsequently the time it will take to complete the works is substantial. Even more unfortunately for the area the gas pipes for this move are situated under Pancras Road. As such we have experienced a lot of unavoidable disruption.


The programme for this disruption on Pancras Road is as follows:

·         The southbound closure remains in place from now until the end of March 2012. whilst the new Gas main infrastructure is being placed in the ground.

·         The current northbound closure at the top end of Pancras Road will be in place until the end of October whilst the valves are attached to the gas mains and the connections are made to the new controller.

·         The same northbound closure will then be required again from the beginning of January 2012 until the middle of March to complete the change over from the old gas controller to the new one.

·         The time frames and programme of works were raised and discussed at the Kings Cross Highway Forum meetings, which included representatives from the Public Carriage Office (PCO) who were passing information back to the trade bodies and drivers.

·         The programme for the improvement works proposed by TfL at the southern end of Pancras Road at the junction with Euston Road are not yet confirmed, but if they do go ahead they will be expected to start in November 2011 with completion scheduled for March 2012.

There are no major changes to the Pancras Road junction with Camley Street and Goods Way proposed, but it is worth a longer range warning thate that when construction of on site B3 (adjacent to the junction) commences on site the proposed site boundary impacts upon the public Highway and therefore the southbound taxi lane could be compromised. We are working on a solution for this to avoid disruption for taxis.


I hope this is a useful update of where things sit currently in relation to Pancras Rd. Let me know if you have any questions

Sam Monck 
Assistant Director, Environment & Transport
Directorate - Culture & Environment 
Culture and Environment
London Borough of Camden

Web:             camden.gov.uk

Directorate, 6th floor
Town Hall Extension (Environment)
Argyle Street
London WC1H 8EQ

Email is self-explanatory: could you please ask Taxi Drivers for feedback relating to the King's Cross/St.Pancreas development.

This is an opportunity to give feedback & make suggestions of how to minimise the disruption that will happen in the area. 

Please use the comments section of this blog to give feedback and help Camden help us in doing our job?