I have recently returned from a rather lenghy stay in Madrid. Justifiably voted the noisiest city in Europe.
Well, has anyone walked down Surbo High St (Victoria Rd) recently, and just stood still for a a minute and simply 'listened' to the ambiant NOISE?
It's well up there as a contender with Madrid!
The noise is tremendous - traffic mainly, roaring of souped up cars/bikes, bikes revving, brash school kids yelling, terrible pollution-pumping roaring busses, jack hammers in the new plaza, taxis , horms blaring, statioin cars midnite football matches.....
Even in the dead of nite/early morning the endles hummmmmm of Surbiton prevails as the MacDonalds back storeroom airco whirs into action in tandem with the megawatt airco of the new heatlth centre up South Bank. And the train station railway works resounds with metal cutting and gas turbines (even tho the railway works are suppsed to be confined to Wimbledon). The screech of the trains pulling into the station......
And if you're unfortunare to have a flat/room facing out onto Lime Street School/Health centre then there is the several early morning revalies of the roaring leaf-blower machines....
How can David whatsitsname councillor try to promote Surbiton as a "village", "The queen of Surrey villages" when it's really an icredably irritating and really noisy place to live?
Comments
Victoria Road ought to be for buses, *exclusively*.
There are 8 bus routes passing through. How many buses is that per hour?.... Horrendous. Not least because the oldest, noisiest buses seem to be reserved for these very routes, relentless, night and day roving engines....
Then there are the crazy fat trains, the shopkeepers who think it's okay to use electict saws, on a work bench mounted on the pedestrians' pavement, at 11.55 p.m. That's 5 to midnight!.... For crying out loud.
Where are the noise and nuisance police?...
Shouldn't they be patrolling the area for neighbourhood watch and crime prevention?... Noise pollution ought to be criminalised
Don't we deserve our rest?.. our rent is paid, so is the council tax... 00:08 in the morning, the guy is using his electric saw...
Why is the local Council not monitoring these pages, for "improvents?...- rather than hosting picnics only the few can attend...
The train noise has increased significantly since South Western Railway took over the franchise from South West Trains. Perhaps the trains have been modified?
Noisy, noisy, NOISY Surbiton is a very old post but has never been more true than now. The train noise is HORRENDOUS!
Has it got worse recently? Is it the screeching of brakes or just the general train noise?
Why so many sirens and police yesterday?
I was in my front garden in Tolworth for an hour in the afternoon and could hear sirens in the distance the entire time. I counted 5 police cars/vans drive past though they did not have their sirens on they were surely headed in the same direction.
Probably some type of training exercise. I still maintain that if there was any incident actually serious enough to warrant that many police vehicles then we'd hear about it in the local paper etc.
The general level of sirens is definitely too high, though. I have seen two examples lately of police cars thrashing down the Portsmouth Road with their lights/sirens on, reach the roundabout at the bottom and turn around and pootle back up Portsmouth Road at 30mph with the lights and sirens off! I realise the this just means that an emergency has been cancelled or another unit has arrived more quickly, but I do think they need to question how many of these incidents are actually true emergencies that requires this type of response.
It should be remembered that as soon as those lights/sirens go on, te risk to all road users increaes exponentially, despite the excellent training offered to police drivers. This type of response should be saved for exceptional circumstances or where a crime is still actually in progress.
True enough, but I am sure most town centres are the same are they not?
If someone chooses to live in the town centre then the noise is to be expected. For the rest of us, most are probably quite happy to put up with it for the time they are there and then enjoy the peace and quiet of their homes when they get back.
I live a few minutes from the town centre and my only noise complaint is the amount of police sirens responding to low level crime. Often, three or four units are dispatched along the Portsmouth Road for what cannot be a serious crime or we'd hear about it in the local paper. I am all for crime prevention, but they need to get this in perspective.
The whole idea of Surbiton as a village is ridiculous. It is a busy London suburb and people have just got onto this village moniker because parts of it are pleasant and leafy. I don't understand it anyway because there is nothing pleasant to me about living in a boring village. If I wanted to live in a village, I'd move to a proper one and save myself a lot of money in the process.
There is no excuse for the leaf blowers. Whoever sanctions using such a noise, fume and dust polluting machine in urban areas wants sacking. When they come down Maple Road pleasant coffee outside The French Tart turns into a nightmare. Clouds of dust and leaves billow into Maple School play areas to engulf the kids at playtime.(good job the mums aren't around to see!) Why can they not just rake the leaves into a pile like the old days? They would get fitter from the exercise, avoid lung disease from the two stroke fumes and dust, plus they wouldn't have to use ear protection.
If they use serious ear protection why do they not hand it out to the public that they are menacing?
At the station the black cabs (that some right on politicians call green transport) need to continually run their engines to keep their heaters on in the winter. They also constantly start up to maintain their place in the queue awaiting busy trains. The Diesel engine in black cabs is probably one of the most polluting around. Net result is that Surbo station is asphyxiating at busy times, particularly in winter.
Why not give the drivers a grant/tax break to convert to electric or gas and install re-chargers at the station?
How come the council has unlimited funds for speed humps/tables and yet cannot afford to fix the potholes? The humps/ tables actually create potholes.
At the station the black cabs (that some right on politicians call green transport) need to continually run their engines to keep their heaters on in the winter. They also constantly start up to maintain their place in the queue awaiting busy trains. The Diesel engine in black cabs is probably one of the most polluting around. Net result is that Surbo station is asphyxiating at busy times, particularly in winter.
Are you serious? what a mind numbingly stupid post.
why?
Well I am lucky to live in the Ditton area on the outskirts of Surbiton and have been watching the building works going on, of the new flats around the Plaza. I wouldn't care to live in one of those thank you. Give me peace and quiet! You didn't mention police cars outside the YMCA during the daytime or the fire engines which usually sound their horn, rush down the High Street and then park opposite Sainsburys. One or two firemen then proceed to leave the vehicle to do their shopping ....
We live in Greater London what do you expect? If you want quiet you need to move to the countryside.
All towns (we aren't a village!) are this noisy.
The Lib Dems running the council do not understand they're supposed to be a service. To serve the residents in their borough. Why then increase traffic and noise into residential roads? This is what has happened as a result of the mess they've created on the Ewell Rd. Residential roads are now rat-runs to avoid gridlock traffic. Will we all just accept this and allow the council's inept decisions to continue to impact on our lives in this way? Surely paying high community tax should mean transport managers on very high wages make sure residents get clean, quiet and traffic safe residential roads not increase them to major link roads? The Ewell Rd was given 3m to increase the efficiency of the road not to make it worse!! Someone has benefitted from these works and it's not the residents, the businesses or the drivers. Looking forward to the elections and hopefully a change of 'power' within the local authority.
"Looking forward to the elections and hopefully a change of 'power' within the local authority".
We need to appreciate that a change in 'power' means absolutely nothing.
They are all the same murky greyness, all with the same agendas, and directed from way, way above regardless of which political party they appear to represent.
I know this as I work for an adjacent Council. Every 4 years the election comes around, promising big changes, and nothing changes because the cost of undoing whatever was done in the previous 4 years is prohibitavely expensive, even if the public are under the misconception that the councillors actually make the decisions, which they don't. Unless it agrees with the agenda fed down from high above
If we vote in a new party and the same people continue to work within the council and no one complains then we deserve the incompetent service we get from them. There needs to be a shake up.
There is no budget for improvements yet 3m has been wasted on the Greenway project!
The Ewell road is a main artery road leading to a dual carriageway with speed restrictions of 20mph. Why?
Traffic is gridlock during rush hours so traffic cuts through residential roads. Some of these roads have road humps, some don't. They all have 30mph restrictions! These are residential roads.Why don't they have 20mph limits? They are becoming busier & faster every day & drivers are becoming more inpatient. Residents living in these roads pay high community tax to receive a decent service instead of this ridiculous situation where safety & quality of living are sidelined.
Agree completely,have you noticed how many drivers now cut through the Tesco garage and the side roads just before that to avoid turning left at the traffic lights on the Ewell road which seem to be red for ages for traffic coming from the Berrylands ghetto?