Sorry to be a pedant, but double yellow lines will have no impact on illegal parking as michael suggests. As usual, it is the people who park legally who will be restricted, but that seems to be the aim.

As for a Utopian vision of car free streets filled with bustling shoppers, I can't see how a major thoroughfare between the South Circular and Crystal Palace could ever be such. All that will happen is that traffic will be squeezed and spill out on to the South Circular causing even more congestion. Much of the congestion is caused by loading activity and buses, but if we banned either, the vision of bustling car free streets would be impossible.

What I really object to, however, is the restriction of lane-width. All this will cause is conflict between two wheeled road users wishing to filter (both cyclists and motorcyclists can and will legally do this) and 4 wheeled road users stuck in the inevitable congestion when two HGVs meet travelling in opposite directions or traffic is queueing to get onto the South Circular as normal.

Also, the lazy idea that widening pavements will create more footfall has no basis in logic. This supposes that there is masses of latent demand that can be served by widening footpaths. I can't see any evidence of this. What would actually increase footfall is moving the station car park to the other end of the shopping parade and offering cheap parking or alternatively building a wheelchair/pram friendly bridge over the railway line at the other end of the Perry Vale car park, but this is obviously a step too far for the ideologues as the objective seems to clearly be restricting car usage rather than improving the accessibility and desirability of local businesses.

Anyway, moan over.