Zero Carbon Streets: Residents of Canterbury Street

This article was published in 2021, in Magazine 153.

Left: A mobile crane which was directed along Benson Street and Canterbury Street by the driver’s sat nav system. The driver damaged a parked car and eventually had to mount the pavement to get round the corner. Right: a typical rush hour scene.
Artist’s impression of a modal filter at the Histon Road end of Canterbury Road.

Canterbury Street and Benson Street suffer from cut-through traffic wishing to avoid the junction of Histon Road and Huntingdon Road. The streets are very narrow and reckless drivers have caused over £20,000 of damage to parked cars and houses since 2009. Now that Histon Road is open both ways after the two-year project from the Greater Cambridge Partnership, the danger increases. Local residents have requested help from traffic officers for years – but to date nothing has been forthcoming. We have submitted LHI (Local Highways Improvement) grant applications, but these are evaluated for funding by county councillors and so far, we haven’t been lucky.

We have just set up a website to make our issues available to everyone. We need to show local residents unaffected by our issues what is happening here so they can support us, if community approval is required. We would really appreciate even a temporary modal filter to demonstrate our case.

Read more about the campaign at https://weneedtoclosecanterburystreet.uk and get involved by emailing the group at info@weneedtoclosecanterburystreet.uk

Anna Crutchley