Kingston Independent Residents Group

Dear councillors,

We, the undersigned residents, workers and road users of New Malden, call on Kingston Council to scrap the yellow box junction on Kingston Road at the junction with Elm Road (and urgently review the adjacent Kingston Road / Westbury Road yellow box).

This yellow box arrangement is widely experienced as unsafe, confusing and unfair, and appears to generate large numbers of penalties without delivering a proportionate traffic-management benefit. Local concerns include:

• Unavoidable stopping when turning right: drivers turning from Kingston Road into Elm Road may have to stop suddenly to give way to cyclists using the cycle lane and to pedestrians, resulting in vehicles being left stationary within the box despite exercising due care.
• Design and compliance concerns: the Kingston Road boxes have been criticised as being oversized / not correctly placed, with reported tribunal findings and expert commentary questioning whether the markings comply with the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions (TSRGD). The Westbury Road box has reportedly already been reduced after adjudicator decisions, while concerns remain about the Elm Road box.
• Loss of public confidence: the scale of enforcement at this location has created a strong perception that the junction functions as a penalty generator rather than a safety measure, undermining trust in the council’s transport policy.

We therefore ask the Council to:

1. Remove (scrap) the Kingston Road / Elm Road yellow box junction and replace it with a safer, clearer layout that does not penalise compliant driving behaviour.
2. Immediately suspend camera enforcement at this location while an independent compliance and safety review is completed.
3. Publish the evidence base for the scheme (collision data, traffic modelling, before/after congestion impacts, equality impacts), plus transparent data on PCNs issued/cancelled and successful appeals at this site.
4. Consult properly with residents, businesses, schools and road users on an alternative design that prioritises safety for pedestrians and cyclists without creating a predictable “gotcha” for drivers.

We support genuine road safety measures. This junction, as currently designed and enforced, is not achieving that goal and should be scrapped or fundamentally redesigned.

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