20mph Speed limit campaigns in Limpley Stoke and Westwood.
Cllr Simon Coombe
gave an update on the 20mph Speed limit campaign in Limpley Stoke.
Points made included:
- The original objective of the 20mph
Speed Limit Campaign, led by the Parish Council, was to make the
village lanes of Limpley Stoke safer to
walk in.
- Progress had now been made;
Limpley Stoke was now looking at
solutions to the traffic issues and good partnership working had
been established with Wiltshire Council Highways and the Bradford
on Avon Area Board.
- Limpley
Stoke Parish Council asked if it would be possible to have more
information about the timing of the implementation of a trial 20mph
site to assist other Parish Councils who were interested in 20mph
speed limits.
David Bullock, (Highways Department, Wiltshire
Council) gave an update on the 20mph Speed limit campaigns in
Limpley Stokeand Westwood.
Points made included:
·
20mph speed limits were to be trialled at six locations across the
county to determine the most effective locations for
20mph speed limits across Wiltshire. Westwood and
Limpley Stoke had
been provisionally selected as two of the six trial
sites.
·
Wiltshire Council highways officers would
now be talking to both parish councils about the speeding problems
in their villages with a view to introducing a trial speed limit
for up to 18 months. A detailed analysis of the current speed
of vehicles in both parishes will also be carried out in
preparation for the trial.
·
Once the current situation had been surveyed, the
two parish councils would be encouraged to canvas local residents.
The trial speed limits should be in place
by October 2010.
·
Once in place, monitoring will be carried out over
the following 18 months. The success of the schemes will
be judged on whether the new speed limits effectively reduce the
speed of motorists. Evaluation of the trials will lead to the
development of a detailed policy regarding 20mph
limits early in 2012.
·
Westwood Parish Council asked if it would be
possible to consider other traffic calming measures as part of this
process. Dave Bullock confirmed that the project aimed to look
specifically at 20mph trials and that other traffic calming
measures would have to be raised separately.
·
Cllr Brown raised the issue of road safety on Ashley
Road, where residents had also made enquiries about 20mph limits
and the possibility of using 20mph stickers to warn motorists to
slow down. Dave Bullock advised that a new black and yellow 20mph
sticker had been agreed and would be available to residents through
their neighbourhood policing team. It was also suggested that St
Laurence may have a school travel plan which was already looking at
the issue.
Agreed that the community area manager would speak to local
residents about the problem in Ashley Road in more
detail.
- Westwood Parish
Council advised that there was not the same level of consensus in
the village on the necessity of a 20mph speed limit as in
Limpley Stoke but that they were
willing to discuss the potential of a trial with Wiltshire
Highways.
Priority for People
update.
Gerald Milward-Oliver, Richard Craft and David Moss (Chair
of the Historic Core Zone Group) gave a presentation updating on
the work of the Priority for people groups. Main points
included:
- Richard Craft presented on the Safer
Community Action Groups response to the recent Speed Limit Review
and their concerns that Wiltshire Council’s interpretation of the Department
for Transport guidelines had been narrow & mechanistic, that
local needs not considered and that they had no confidence in use
of mean speed data.
- The group further expressed their desire to be
helpful in providing local intelligence to Wiltshire Highways as
they developed transport policy.
- David Moss, Chair of the Historic Core Zone Group,
gave an update on the progress of plans for a Historic Core Zone in
the centre of Bradford on Avon. He recounted that the idea of an
HCZ for BoA had been born at a Taming
the Traffic workshop in 2008 and that the Historic Core Zone group
had welcomed the commissioning of Colin Buchanan Consultants by
Wiltshire Council to draw up initial plans for a
scheme.
- Colin Buchan had held two stakeholder
workshops in the town and now planned to put their first draft
proposals to a public meeting (hosted by the Priority for People
group) on the 23rd June, to Bradford on Avon Town
Council at their meeting on the 29th June and to the Bradford on
Avon Area Board on the Area Board on 21st July.
- David Moss recounted that the proposals from Colin
Buchanan were likely to include: Inner and outer zones with
gateways, wider pavements and narrower carriageways, redesigned
junctions, easier pedestrian crossing, slower (and less) traffic,
fewer (or no) traffic signs and painting on streets and higher
quality paving materials and street furniture. However the
proposals did not consider issues around air quality, buses, heavy
lorries and parking. The group expressed
concern that these areas were going to be considered separately to
the Historic Core Zone project.
- Gerald Milward Oliver
asked the area board to
Give Priority for People status on the Area Board to
satisfy Wiltshire Council
Work with Priority for People and WC to make the BoA Community Area a pilot for a new kind of
approach to addressing highways, transport and related issues
(including air quality & low carbon) within a predominantly
rural area
Work with Priority for People to bring together public
concerns and ambitions to build a mechanism for delivering results
—
including parish-based plans that enable the Area Board to argue
for action
A
discussion followed which included the following points:
- CllrTonge
responded to the criticisms of the speed review by explaining that,
given public concern over the cost of consultants, the speed limit
review could not take into consideration every geographical feature
of an area as this would have elevated the cost considerably. He
also advised that Town and Parish Councils were asked to comment on
the proposals as they were the local elected representatives of
communities.
- The chair asked if Parish Councils would be
prepared to initiate Parish Plans in their areas. Wingfield Parish Council explained that this had
been investigated but the problem was the cost of consulting on and
producing parish plans. There was also concern locally that these
plans had no legal basis and were not binding. Westwood Parish
Council also responded to say that it had been decided a parish
plan was not needed at their last parish council meeting.
Limpley Stoke Parish Council responded
to say that in Limpley Stoke, the
parish plan had been put together with volunteers at very little
cost and had given the parish council an important strategic guide
for what to do.
Decision
Priority for People should be
given formal status as partners to the Bradford on Avon Area Board
for all matters relating to the Historic Core Zone
project.
Priority for People were
invited to undertake work with parishes to ensure it
fully represents transport issues across all of the community
area to enable the group to become a formal partner
to the board outside Bradford.
Priority for People would be
invited to update the relevant chapter of the revised
community area plan in partnership with the Community Area
Partnership and is invited to propose how this should be
done.
The Chairman thanked everybody for their
updates.