Accident on Clapham Road outside Oval tube station - injuries sustained not critical

Last night, there was an accident on Clapham Road (almost opposite Oval tube station) involving two motorists and a motorcycle at about 6pm.  Buses were placed on diversion and the road was closed.  Police mentioned to a bystanders that injuries were sustained by all involved, but none of the people involved in the accident are in a critical condition.  There were no fatalities.
There's a brief report (and photo) of the incident over on Wanderlee's blog.

New London Cycle Hire in Vauxhall Street nearly finished. Are new docking stations too close together?

Further to the planning permission application back in August, to place new docking stations on Vauxhall St and Oval Way, I can confirm that the Vauxhall Street dock is nearly finished.  Following a tip-off from somebody on the Boris Bike forums, I heard that works had begun.

It was a bit dark when I visited last night, as you can see: 

Now that I've seen the placement of the dock (just off of Kennington Lane), which I've plotted on the map below (the top blue marker), I'm surprised at the choice of an additional site for Oval Way (ringed in red). 

I forgot to check Oval Way yesterday to see whether the docking station there has been started, but I'll check tonight.  My view is that there will be three docking stations too close to one another (considering that some areas have none).  The docking station close to Kennington Tesco (blue market on the right), the new Vauxhall Road one (blue market on the left) and the proposed station on Oval Way are not near enough to Vauxhall Station to be any use as overflow points and I'm not sure why they've been clustered there. 

My feeling is that it would be to put a station on the island (near to the over-active fountain) just outside of Oval Station.  There's nothing else there and it would put the dock on a Cycle Superhighway as well.  I think TFL are being silly about site placement, just trying to cram in their 400 docks to achieve the agreed quota.  I really can't see that there's demand for both Vauxhall Road and Oval Way docks so close to one another.  Of course, it should make it easier to find somewhere to park in Kennington (without having to wander all of the way to the Lollard Street stop), but the spacing is unimaginative.  The real need is for more spaces around Vauxhall Station and further south in London.  My suggestion for the use of the Oval fountain site is on account of it being  a "main road" route.  Oval Way is unnecessary, given the station placed so far down Vauxhall Road.

What do others think?

Oval accident - female cyclist died

Stockwell News reported some kind of accident or incident at Oval tube station in Harleyford Road at around 8:30am this morning, and noticed lots of emergency vehicles and somebody on a stretcher. I left for work very late this morning, and didn't notice any traffic buildup in Kennington as a result, but no doubt the road was cleared quickly.

(Edit, 12:12) - One Lurking about SE11 commentator notes that the person on a stretcher was a woman. It is reported that she was a cyclist, and was hit by a lorry.

(Edit, 30/6/2009) - It has now been confirmed (see comments) that the cyclist died in the accident, witnessed by a number of readers yesterday. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of both the cyclist and the lorry driver.

I know that the roads in this area are potentially dangerous because they are so fast moving, and I frequently see both cyclists and motorists driving/cycling dangerously.

Thank you for all of the comments you've all contributed. I know that readers will be sad to hear of another accident in this area. Some of the folk at the London Fixed-Gear and Single Speed website are advocating writing to Boris Johnson to request that he makes HGV/cyclist safety a priority. Individual letters are (as with most things) a more powerful catalyst for change than petitions. If you would like to follow up, you can contact the Mayor as follows:

By email: mayor@london.gov.uk
Postal Address:
Boris Johnson
Mayor of London
Greater London Authority
City Hall
The Queen's Walk
More London
London SE1 2AA
Telephone: 020 7983 4100
Minicom: 020 7983 4458
Fax: 020 7983 4057

I lifted the above information from the thread about the accident on the London FGSS forums here.

(For what it's worth, Boris might be more open to listening to comments at the moment because he was involved in a near-miss recently, reported by the BBC here.)

Morrells, or Morrell and Sons is going to become....

One of the Lurking commentators asked whether I know what is happening to Morrell and Sons (or Morrell's as it's known locally) builders' merchants.

I feared for weeks that it might become another Estate Agent, but fortunately, the economic climate is preventing further expansion in that sector. I've no issue with Estate Agents, but the proliferation in SE11 was starting to become tedious.

I have it on good authority that Morrell's is now occupied by a firm that intend to turn it into a Plumbers Merchant/bathroom shop, and they are currently selling off the remaining old stock in preparation to replace it with plumbing merchandise.

We'll have to wait and see... I'm quite impressed that certain empty retail units in Kennington are being replaced quite so quickly. The shop fronts are being occupied at a time of immense economic instability, so clearly the foot fall around Kennington Cross makes it desirable. There are still a few too many empties opposite Kennington park, between Kennington and Oval tubes. I don't think there's any more space for a convenience store (there are already three within spitting distance). I'd like to see a cafe in the empty laundrette next to the funeral directors, but again, the area has quite a lot of Greasy Spoons, the best, in my humble opinion, being the fabulously friendly Parma Cafe.

Oval incident - man under tube train still alive!

Yesterday, I reported that there had been some kind of incident at Oval tube station. Some other news sources have now published information about what happened.

It was not a suicide, as various people assumed (or if it was, it appears to have been an unsuccessful attempt). Instead, South London today report:

"A 58-YEAR-OLD man had a lucky escape after being pulled from under a train at Oval Tube station yesterday (Thursday)".

Exactly how the man came to be on the track is unclear, but more is revealed by a London Daily News article, which reports:

"The man escaped with head injuries when he fell off the northbound Northern Line platform at Oval Station yesterday."

The Lurking about SE11 team extend wishes for a quick recovery!

Incident at Oval tube?

According to a police officer leaving the scene, there was an incident at Oval Tube station this morning. He didn't give me any more details.

At about 8:25, everybody was preparing to leave, but I counted at least 2 fire engines, 2 ambulances, 1 services motorbike, 2 medium size police vans and 2 British Transport Police units (sort of a cross between fire engines and police units).

Apparently, buses weren't stopping at the bus stop for some time, but have since resumed. Obviously, there was quite a considerably traffic build up.

What on earth happened? Does anybody have more details?

Edit: See blog comment. Apparently, one person under a train necessitates 10 emergency vehicles.