Traffic Calming

The traffic calming scheme through the village is a condition of the new housing estates north and south of Park Lane. The work was agreed as part of the condition of the planning permission and included in the Section 106 legal agreement.

This agreement was made some 10 years ago. The trigger point for the release of the funding for the traffic calming was the occupation of 500 dwellings. This was possibly somewhat delayed as the relief road was agreed to be the most important highway enhancement to be funded from the developments. This was designed and installed ahead of the majority of the work, and the house sales taking place. The trigger points are agreed with all parties to allow for the cashflow of the developers to be able to fund them from the sales of the houses.

Even though it was known that the release of the main funding for the traffic calming would be at some point after the initial start of the development, the Parish Council was keen to get the ball rolling on the planning stage for the traffic scheme and requested the developer to make an early contribution as the LCC highways had confirmed that it wouldn't start design and planning for the scheme until it was in receipt of the funding.

The amount agreed in the Section 106 for traffic calming was set at £331,000.00. The funding, even with the early release, was late coming through as the LCC did not invoice and request payment from the developers. As it was late, it does have the added benefit of being index linked with a set interest rate being paid on top of the £331,000.00.

Once the money has been received by the LCC highways, it has 5 years to finish the scheme. If it doesn't finish it by then, it has to give the money back to the developer plus interest. The payments were finally made about 3 years ago. That means there is 2 years left for the LCC to complete the scheme.

To get the scheme completed, there are various surveys needed, an initial design stage, consultation, approval by Cabinet at LCC, and detailed design stage before work starts. The good news is LCC Cabinet has given approval, but no further movement has been made on the detailed design stage.

So far, every estimate that has been given by the LCC has not been achieved. There have already been changes to the designs, because £331k now doesn't buy as much as £331k would have done 10 years ago when that figure was decided upon, or even 5 years ago.

The relief road has lots of roundabouts and in terms of distance and time it takes longer to go round the relief road than through the village, so it has taken some of the volume but not as much as expected. The traffic calming design considered that, and the aim was to try to encourage traffic to use the relief road and reduce speed in the village, within the budget available.

Every step of the way, the Parish Council has tried to do as much cajoling, nudging, asking for updates as possible. The Clerk and Councillor Mark Rogers met recently with Trevor Pendleton, LCC councillor for the rea, to decide how best to put pressure on the LCC.

The Parish Council is doing everything that it can, where appropriate, as assertively as it can. It is very frustrating and takes a considerable amount of time, more than the Parish Council feels is acceptable!

In the latest email from the LCC project manager and it states, 'construction is likely to be in the Autumn!'.

The Parish Council will continue to put pressure on the LCC to implement the traffic calming within a timely manner and as it has now confirmed.

The Parish Council will request for a timeline (from now until autumn) of when this work is to be implemented and also for an up-to-date plan of what has been consulted on and approved.

We will now all being well start on site to construct the above scheme on the 27^th August.

We have taken on board what members of the public said during our consultation phase of this scheme development and removed the sheltered parking aspect of the scheme, this has been replaced with an additional buildout to slow traffic down. Please find a new drawing for your information attached.