Minutes:
Question
WSP had a scheme which the Traffic Management Team and the Highways Inspector asked the Council to look at because the plastic bollards on the extremely narrow footway were being regularly hit by vehicles, which meant they were had to be mounting the footway.
The scheme was on a list to be done just over a year ago that extended the 30 mph speed limit and gave the illusion that the road was narrowing so that this should slow vehicles entering and leaving the village at this point where currently pupils/parents (many with pushchairs with young children also) walk to The Coombes and when Bohunt opens there will be two-way traffic with many more pupils/parents walking in the opposite direction at the same times.
The footway is so narrow in this area and it cannot be widened because that is the extent of the footway width of the Council owned land.
Can you explain why this scheme has been totally ignored when the very clear risks to pedestrians, mainly children and their parents is there for all to see and for which you appeared to baulk at taking responsibility for as I asked you to do in my recent question at Council?
Answer
The section of footway in question is an established walked route for The Coombes School and will become part of a walked route for the new Bohunt School once open in September.
The plastic reflective bollards were installed to better define the edge of roads for motorists, particularly in the hours of darkness. They offer no physical protection to pedestrians using the footway. But I can confirm there is no evidence of vehicles actually mounting the footway at this location as this would have resulted in several bollards being taken out in a single section and incident.
However, the presence of the bollards on the footway does take some space, therefore they can reduce the readily accessible walking width on the footway.
All walked routes associated with access to the new Bohunt School, including this section, have very recently been subject to an independent assessment of walked routes. This assessment commented that the width of the existing footway is reduced by the presence of the bollards, as was mentioned above, and recommends that either the bollards are fully removed or the number of bollards reduced to maximise the footway width available. Either of these recommendations, in the opinion of the independent assessment team would provide a “non-hazardous walked route” to serve both schools. The Council’s project team for access improvements to the new Bohunt School, having considered the recommendation, are accepting the second option to reduce the number of bollards. This will then provide both an increase in the footway width available, while still highlighting the edge of the road for motorists, particularly in the hours of darkness.
The WSP scheme referred to looked in isolation at this bollarded section of footway on Eversley Road. With the reduction of bollards now proposed Officers are satisfied the Council are complying with the independent assessment and therefore providing a non-hazardous walked route at this location. Therefore the earlier WSP scheme has recently been withdrawn. This will now allow the Traffic Management Team to work with Thames Valley Police for a more holistic engineering scheme that will allow the speed limit to be reduced on both Eversley Road and Langley Common Road, which remains an aspiration of local parishes, the local Members and the Traffic Management Team which, of course, requires the support of Thames Valley Police.
Supplementary Question
16 years ago at the appeal for Penrose Park the Inspector walked that route with the Parish Council and myself and he decided there and then that it wasn’t safe and he actually allocated £200,000 for footpaths and cycleways in that area. None of this was ever used and that was pre-bollard. So there was a clear recognition that this was a problem.
Since June I have probably sent about 50-70 e-mails to Officers and to Malcolm Richards to try and get to some sort of solution for this issue and sadly Malcolm never replied to any of them; which I found strange. So I would ask you: would you consider putting this section of road into the TRO and if not would you do, once you have done the work you are going to do, carry out a risk assessment and a safety audit and let me know the results please?
Supplementary Answer
I have already indicated that there are other things going on and we will be looking at all these things, including tonight’s comments, and as information emerges and gets processed I will let you know.