Update - December 2024 Support for Traffic Calming has been extremely poor. WCC own the highways and any measures need to be agreed through them. They do not support any traffic calming in our Parish due to our low accident statistics. They have areas on a waiting list which need funding to reduce serious accidents resulting in death and serious injury. Their standard response to enquiries is they are committed to making our roads as safe as possible through engineering, education and enforcement and continue to fund a successful Road Safety Education programme while working in partnership with the police to focus enforcement at appropriate sites. Whilst they would like to accommodate requests for traffic calming their resources are unfortunately limited and they need to prioritise work on locations with a poor collision rate, where there are patterns of activities or behaviours that can be attributed to the collisions, and where viable solutions can be identified that can make an impact. Engineering measures that could effectively improve road safety are identified using Road Safety Intelligence to ensure as many casualties as possible are prevented with the funding available.
We have attended HS2 committee meetings since the outset hoping to apply for traffic calming funding from them. We are not on their official haulage routes and we need to support any claims with evidence. They maintain that no official diversion routes use our Parish and they are not responsible for drivers who ignore them. We did a traffic count prior to HS2 commencing, and recently had monitoring wires positioned on Station Road and Coton Road to understand the impact, the results were surprising, traffic had not increased, there was evidence of speeding which has been shared with the police. We need to prove the continuous violations. As with any business who are approached for compensation, HS2 need proof. The only way, we are advised, is to take details of the offending vehicles and send them into our contact who checks the details and reports the drivers.
Attached is the completed Traffic Calming Feasability study and proposed improvements to the Tamworth Road/Gate Lane junction. This is the first stage of the study and will be open for consultation with residents. We would be interested to hear your initial views.
County Councillor Andy Jenns is happy to fund the improvements to Tamworth Road/Gate Lane junction and a meeting had been scheduled with highways to discuss the project further but was cancelled due to the Coronavirus restrictions.
We will be approaching HS2 for funding of the traffic calming scheme once construction commences and we have evidence of the incease in traffic flow through the parish. We have recently carried out 2 traffic counts, taken from 7am-7pm on a typical Wednesday to establish current traffic flow data.
Download the Traffic Calming Feasability study for Whitacre Heath, April 2020
Proposed Tamworth Road/Gate Lane improvements.