Getting HGVs to stay out of cycle track

There is a cycle track on the pavement running along a road near me. The road ends at a park, with a couple of schools on the other side of the park, and the cycle track is well used by kids and parents going to and from the schools (including me and my daughter).

There is also a waste disposal company on the same road and I am getting increasingly fed up with their skip vans and lorries mounting the kerb and entering the cycle lane when backing into their yard, or just driving in the cycle track when there isn't enough room on the road to pass. In both cases it's usually because another of the company's vans is parked up on the road, which has yellow lines.

Can anyone recommend any strategies for getting the vans to stay out of the cycle lane? What agencies/organisations should I be talking to? The council (Haringay)? LCC? Anyone else?

Also does anyone have any opinions on exactly how to keep the vans out? I had thought about plastic wands, but I am pretty sure they will just get flattened. A metal railing or bollards between the pavement/cycle track and the road would probably do better but I worry about cyclists+HGVs+railings. Would be nice if the council would issue a fine for every time a van entered the cycle track or parked on the yellow line. I expect that would be pretty effective...

Any advice appreciated

You're talking about O'Donovans on Markfield Road, right?
Good luck getting them to do anything!

Yeah, is that from experience?

I need to figure out what rules they're breaking, who is responsible for enforcing, and then I'm prepared to commit to being so annoying that they actually get enforced.

It shouldn't be this hard to stop 6 year olds having to share their bike lane with skip lorries!

Get in touch with the governors board at the nearby school ?
They are likely to have a variety of professionnal talents to give advice and posssibly get involved ?

Contact the local councillors, and the Cabinet member with responsibility for Highways.

This feels like a situation in which if you can make enough noise it then becomes unavoidable for someone to do something about it because no-one wants a child crushed by skip on their record/conscience when they have publicly and notably received multiple warnings.

This feels like a situation in which if you can make enough noise it then becomes unavoidable for someone to do something

This.

Write to councillors for enforcement, cite what rules/laws they are breaking.

Then you may want to start a twitter account and just tweet daily with pics and tag local councillors, council etc. If you get them on video actually mounting and parking on pavement report to Met for action.

Thats what time-rich NIMBYs do to get across and thats what we may need to do sadly.

Councils don't have budget or interest to keep enforcement efforts up long term. These problems only get solved by either bollards or waiting for the company's yard to be turned into flats.

Have you tried talking to the company directly? They seem to have some shite on their website about being safer than other companies.

Surely bollards/some form of physical separation is the desirable outcome and well within the reach of any council to provide?

They used to have a guy that would stand and watch as the vans reversed.
Do they still have that?

Haven't been that way for a while, but used to cycle it regularly.
It's obviously very different for 6 year olds, but it never felt that unsafe to me.
Hope that hasn't changed!

whenever you ask for something like this the generic council reply is "lack of funds"

pestering for enforcement for which they already pay for is the short term solution IMO

Thanks all. Will contact councillors and school governors. Does anyone know chapter and verse for which rule they're breaking by entering the cycle track?

Yeah he's still there some of the time, but not that effective in my opinion. The drivers don't seem to want to wait for him so they are often doing their own thing. And he obviously only does it for the O'Donovan vans, which aren't actually the only culprits

Apart from the principle that just because they are in a big van they don't have to keep to the rules it never used to bother me either. Younger kids lack the sense to share space with them though, and the whole point of the cycle track is that they shouldn't have to.

Yeah I tried talking to the owner a while ago, I thought quite politely and conductively, but he just started shouting and swearing at me and I couldn't get a word in edgeways.

Let's see if the bollards or flats arrive first. Personally I have no problem with the company being there, as long as they stay out of cycle spaces and don't silt the drains up with all the crud that comes off their trucks. But I know a lot of people want them gone and flats instead

It's the Mayoral and Assembly elections on May 2nd. This could be a good time to write to candidate, make some noise see if you can get some of them on board.

I know one of the O'Donovan owners, acquaintance of an acquaintance, and they will absolutely not care until it costs them money or sanctions on them doing business. My only input I can offer.

Ha that's interesting. Yeah I'm not going to waste any energy tugging on heartstrings