Granby Road Pavement Renewal

PRESS RELEASE no: 2014/02

4 March 2015

Those who designed the Progress Estate in 1915 (then called the Well Hall Estate) could not have conceived of the impact motorised transport would start to have on society only 20 years later, when it became common for developers to include garages in their designs.   This historical fact has always had a particular impact in Granby Road where the prevalence of flats creates more or less twice the pressure of cars per metre than elsewhere on the Estate.   The problem is exacerbated by its narrowness.   Residents have no option but to park on the pavement, because there would otherwise be no room for emergency or refuse vehicles to travel up

or down.   This, inevitably, caused the flag stones (which are probably not of 1915 origin) to crack, thus rendering the pavements uneven.

For some years, the local authority’s answer was to cover broken flagstones with tarmac.   However, this offended people’s conception of how a Conservation Area should look (albeit highways are not governed by conservation area regulations) and, equally importantly, did not provide a long-term solution, as our first photograph demonstrates.

Largely due to the persistence of a Granby Road resident, the matter was raised in Council by Cllr. Spencer Drury and, in due course, Cllr. Wynn Davies discovered that funding could be made available under the Highway Improvements with Local Labour Project (‘HILL’) to renew the worst-affected stretches of the Road.   

HILL is a project run by Royal Greenwich designed to provide people with work experience.   HILL’s aim is to improve the Borough’s local streets

(funding for the Principal Road network being via the Dept. for Transport funding stream).    

Although footway works are mainly targeted to areas of high pedestrian usage, it was decided that Granby Road was an ideal HILL project as it would save future damage to the footway and the type of paving used would provide great experience for those employed.

The new paving stones are a relatively recent development.   They are laid on concrete foundations and, being smaller than flagstones, are better able to withstand the weight of parked cars.

Note for Editors:

Originally named the Well Hall Estate, The Progress Estate was built in 1915 to provide housing for the many additional workers the Woolwich Arsenal needed to manufacture the armaments required by the services during the First World War.   Conservation Area status was granted in 1975, in recognition of its unique architectural character.

For additional information, please contact:

Keith Billinghurst

Progress Residents Association committee member

56 Arsenal Road

Eltham

London  SE9 1JY

tel: 020 8856 5593 or 07962 877389

email:               TheProgressEstate@Gmail.com

Twitter:             @ProgressEstate

Website:           www.progressestate.co.uk