Dear LPG,

When I moved into my basement flat, in Eastdown Park, over 30 years ago, it had the perfect location.  It was just far enough from the relatively busy Lee High Road to make it a peaceful place to live, while it was also near enough to Lewisham Riverdale centre to offer a comfortable walk to the shops. But over the years the powers that be have re arranged the way that traffic negotiate the surrounding streets in such a way that, I believe, my neighbours and I are paying the price.

The blocking of Clarendon Rise is where it started and the traffic began to get worse as a direct result, but when the Lewisham Gateway project got underway in 2014, the road I live in appeared to have been affected as a direct result. 

The traffic has changed from the cars and small vehicles that we used to have pass, to seriously large, heavy duty lorries and trucks passing frequently.  The fumes have become so bad that I am unable to open my front windows during the summer months and the noise is almost constantly deafening day or night.

I am now hearing that the situation has nothing to do with Lewisham Gateway and that it is likely to be a TFL issue, which makes me think that all the agencies concerned want to blame each other. 

I was a lot younger when I moved into Lewisham and was pleased and able to say that my children were brought up in a safe urban street that Lewisham can be proud of, but now as I approach retirement, I cannot believe that mine is the only house in what was a residential road in Lewisham that has experienced this particular knock-on effect of the Gateway so far. 

I plan to ask more questions and come back to LPG with my findings, but it does occur to me that there may be other readers who have had similar experiences and I would be happy to hear from anyone about their related plight.

BB, Lewisham