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.
The first steps of iIntroducing Traffic Calming advised by WCC in Nov 22.
Can you confirm if you have a Dark Skies Policy?
The reason I ask is that it affects the type of measures you can consider. If you want somebody to price this scheme up, we will have to go into detail to see what the types of traffic calming measures have been put forward, check drainage and the Statutory Undertakers Plant. The main concern is that there would have to be a legal process to advertise the Traffic Calming Measures speed humps ,build outs this is a minimum of £6,000. Can I take it that an informal consultation has been carried out by the Parish Council into the locations of the proposed speed humps and chicanes and residents living near to these proposals are in favour of having them outside their houses. Street Lighting would have to be designed for the whole length of the scheme, because traffic calming features have to be illuminated through the hours of darkness, are the residents happy about Street Lighting in the Village being on all night?
We could carry out a cost estimate of the works, but we would first ask the PC to fill in a Commision Form so we can review what is needed , by when and the amount of time it would take for u to price this up, has this preliminary design had a Road Safety Audit or Technical Review carried out on it, we would need that before we could carry out any costing. You would also have to get written approval from M-EC for us to have the detailed plans of their Design they have put to you.
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.
