HOUSEHOLDS in Woodford Green have reacted angrily to council plans to introduce a raft of new traffic calming and parking measures in their streets.

The proposals, first revealed in February, include multiple 20mph zones near schools such as St Anthony’s RC, Trinity Catholic High, Bancroft’s and Woodford Green Prep School, along with new parking bays, speed humps and bollards.

The council, together with Transport for London (TfL), came up with the plans to help improve road safety in the area.

But in recent weeks residents living in the surrounding roads such as Sunset Avenue, High Elms and Mornington Road, who have just received the council’s consultation forms, have hit out at the details and demanded the authority re-think the plans.

Irvine Phillips, of the Hollow, said the proposals were “very impractical and without due consideration.”

Mr Phillips said many members of his residents' association were worried the plans would increase congestion caused by traffic from parents and students at nearby schools.

He added: “Ultimately there needs to be a one-way system and parking has got to be of a controlled nature for residents.”

Cllr Michael Stark, cabinet member for Children’s Services, said that because the consultation was on-going no decisions had yet been made.

He added: “whatever scheme we do some people will be unhappy about it. It’s a problem but there is no solution to it.

“We’ve got some very small roads that were built in the last century and we’ve got an impossible situation.

“Short of building more roads we can’t come up with an impossible situation.”

Woodford Lib Dem activist Geoffrey Seeff said the consultation was “plain daft” and called on the council to carry out a full-scale strategic review of parking in Woodford Green.

He added: “I’m optimistic we can find a solution. We’ve got to look at parking in Woodford Green as a whole.”

It is not the first time the plans have attracted controversy.

As the Guardian reported in February, Bancroft’s headteacher Mary Ireland accused the council of a lack of “joined-up thinking” by not including her school’s road safety suggestions in the proposals.

The plans will cost nearly £200,000 if implemented, but will be funded entirely by TfL.