Plans to rip out the notorious roundabout beneath the Blackwall Tunnel approach in east Greenwich may be “lost in the TfL ether”, councillors have been told – by a TfL official.
Five years ago Transport for London proposed removing the Angerstein Roundabout – where Woolwich Road meets the A102 – and replacing it with a more conventional junction, closing access to the northbound tunnel approach.
But the proposal was shelved in 2022 because of a lack of funding, and Josh Freestone, a TfL community partnerships specialist, could provide no answers when quizzed by councillors at a transport scrutiny panel meeting last Thursday – and appeared to pass the buck back to the council.
A cycle route across the centre of the roundabout was installed in 2020 after two cyclists died trying to cross the junction – Edgaras Cepura in 2018 and Adrianna Skrzypiec in 2009.
But the junction remains dangerous, with emergency services reporting a hit-and-run there last week.
“That was far before my time,” Freestone, who is relatively new in the role with liaising with councils, said of the proposal. “I think that’s something that we need to raise with borough colleagues. It’s not something that I’ve had a conversation with Greenwich’s strategic transport team about.”
“It was originally a TfL proposal,” David Gardner, a Labour councillor for Greenwich Peninsula said. “The council has not only endorsed it, but adopted it. It’s a key part of our strategy, particularly obviously with the opening of the Silvertown Tunnel.
“And it’s awful for residents. You want to go and talk to some of the people that live there and see the air quality and the dirt on people’s windows and doors. It’s appalling and really needs addressing.”
Gardner said that as both Greenwich and the mayor’s office received community infrastructure levy funding from developers, “we need a joint effort to ensure we make a big improvement there”.
Freestone said he would think about arranging a site visit and added: “From what you are saying, that this has potentially been lost in the TfL ether, which sometimes does happen.”
Maisie Richards Cottell, a Labour councillor for East Greenwich ward, which covers the west side of the roundabout, said she agreed with Gardner. “That’s such an opportunity to improve that area, particularly with the huge big population increase we’ll see on the peninsula,” she said.
In a written answer supplied to councillors, TfL said it was “investigating opportunities to improve the urban realm at Angerstein roundabout” as part of works to make the cycleway through the area permanent, “which could include planting, footway and lighting improvements”.
The junction opened in the late 1960s with traffic lights and a complex layout, but was changed to a roundabout about a decade later. The current arrangement, with both a roundabout and traffic lights, was put in place in the late 1990s.
Over the years TfL has been ripping out roundabouts and gyratories across London at locations including the Elephant & Castle, Highbury Corner and Old Street, but the Angerstein roundabout has been barely touched.
In 2014 the mayor at the time, Boris Johnson, included the roundabout in his Better Junctions programme, but when Sadiq Khan relaunched the scheme as Safer Junctions three years later, it had disappeared.
New developments such as Ikea have increased traffic over the junction, and councillors fear more will come when the Silvertown Tunnel opens in April.
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