Agenda item

Forward Plan Ref: 2019/173

Contact: Hugh Potter, Group Manager – Area Operations Hub Tel: 07766 998704

Report by Director for Community Operations (Interim) (CMDE14).

The report presents responses received to a statutory consultation to provide amended traffic calming measures (originally installed in 1990 as a safety scheme) as a result of a major maintenance scheme for the road The amendments put forward by the Area traffic team in consultation with the local member and other officers will be funded by the Oxfordshire County Council major maintenance programme.

The Cabinet Member for Environment is RECOMMENDED to approve the proposed amended traffic calming measures on Northcourt Road, Abingdon as advertised.

The Cabinet Member for Environment considered (CMDE14) responses received to a statutory consultation to provide amended traffic calming measures (originally installed in 1990 as a safety scheme) as a result of a major maintenance scheme for the road The amendments put forward by the Area traffic team in consultation with the local member and other officers would be funded by the Oxfordshire County Council major maintenance programme.

Graham Paul Smith, Cycling UK had submitted comments setting out concerns regarding the scheme. He considered it should not be approved in its present state and listed a number of issues including its design which he considered would fail at reducing speed and be less effective than the current scheme and likely to speed-up motor traffic. The face-to-face consultation had seemed inadequate for a road with many frontages and mixed uses, particularly at the Oxford Road end. A top-down Highways scheme approach was not appropriate for a residential street with two schools, a College and two community centres, two shops and a Public House. It would worsen the environment for cycling, contrary to County Policy and he considered that the proposal squandered Major Maintenance Scheme money, focusing merely upon reconstruction.

Robin Tucker spoke on behalf of Oxfordshire Cycling Network and as an Abingdon resident. They had objected to the proposals because they failed to consider the context of the street, safety and the Council’s policy to encourage modal shift to low carbon transport and make the street less safe. Northcourt Road was a residential street with a Nursery, Primary School, Secondary School, Further Education College, Community Centre, café, 2 shops and a pub all directly accessed from the road.  It was very busy at school times with evidence of ‘rat running’ between Wootton Road and Oxford Road, and antisocial driving.  The current measures were insufficient to assure safety and Crashmap.co.uk had shown 8 Incidents in only 5 years. In 4 of them a cyclist had been a casualty, in 3 a pedestrian was a casualty and in 3 a child had been a casualty. All this on a residential road ½ a mile long.  The proposal replaced 5 full-width humps that were only comfortable at 20mph, with speed cushions that can be driven over in many cars at 30mph hardly feeling a thing. It would encourage people to buy wider cars, increase speeds and, therefore, danger on this street, even before you considered what happens when children return to school all trying to stay 2 metres away from each other. Contrary to the officer’s report, there were only 3 (14%) of consultation responses in support. One was supporting their proposal of a speed reduction to 20mph.  The Police noted the ineffectiveness of speed cushions at slowing motorcycles.  Additionally, 17 (81%) of responses to the consultation objected or raised concerns. In the last several weeks, Northcourt Road had been transformed with a surge in families walking and cycling together to take their daily exercise.  They would like to keep that when children returned to school. To that end they had proposed a modal filter and ‘School Street’ approach to take out traffic driving through and near the school gate.  Funding for that was available under the DfT’s Emergency Active Travel Fund but if that was not possible he urged consideration be given to a reduced speed limit to 20mph to improve people’s survival chances.

Councillor Emily Smith advised that the first case she had as a County Councillor two years ago, was about cycle safety on Northcourt Road. That incident had been as a result of the appalling state of the road surface.  There is a primary school, secondary school and college on Northcourt Road. Students from the other two secondaries also travel to school using this road andit is vital that children and parents feel able to walk and cycle safely here. Resurfacing would of course make the road smoother and safer for people to ride bikes along.  However, she was speaking against approval of this scheme because the officer’s report stated that this scheme comprised “relatively small changes to the road layout” and she considered that it should comprise big changes. She had been calling for change to the layout from the moment Northcourt Road made it onto the maintenance programme and it seemed nonsensical to her to spend all this money on a resurface without taking the opportunity to make some significant changes. For the past 18 months she had been raising at every opportunity the need for a different layout before resurfacing and yet when the consultation document came out it was for resurfacing with “relatively small changes”.  The report suggested funding was the blocker and she had been told that because this was a maintenance scheme it was handled in a different way from a capital scheme looking at new road layouts. Either way, it seemed the suggestion that we do resurfacing then come and dig bits up at a later date was disappointing. When money was short, surely it was more efficient to make the changes all in one go and with less disruption for residents. We are also in the middle of a climate emergency and the county council passed a motion to do all we could to enable active travel.

There were several improvements suggested in the consultation responses that really were needed:

·           a proper zebra crossing near to Dunmore Primary and more raised crossings

·           Narrower lanes for motor traffic

·           Raised junctions to keep cycle paths and pavements level

·           bollards to protect the verges but more importantly to stop parents parking outside the school at drop off times

·           reducing traffic volumes at the beginning and end of the school day - we should be considering Northcourt Road as a Schools Street

·           discouraging cars and lorries using this narrow road as a cut through with the use of modal filters – at least during the morning and evening rush hours.

While it would be good to get rid of some potholes this scheme could be so much more ambitious. People were walking and cycling more as a consequence of the lockdown and now would be the perfect time to make some bigger changes that would have lasting changes on the number of students especially travelling to school on foot or by bike. Not to spend a bit more money now to get this scheme right seemed like a wasted opportunity.

The Cabinet Member was clear that this was a maintenance scheme and not a comprehensive scheme and while acknowledging that currently there was no funding available to address the improvements suggested by the local member and others she asked officers whether this scheme would inhibit future schemes which might involve some of those elements.

Officers advised that the while some of the proposals suggested had merit it was difficult to answer that.  The point of resurfacing was to protect the life of the road and that needed to be done now. Future schemes could only be installed on a good and sound road surface. There was no funding to improve layout but that could be investigated to see what could be done but it was unlikely that there would be sufficient funding to undertake anything major.

The Cabinet Member thanked everyone for their input and information and while she understood the desire for more to be done there was currently insufficient funding to deal with all the problems referred to. She recognised that this was first and foremost a maintenance scheme to protect the life of the surface of the road and not a comprehensive improvement scheme. However, it was noted that while there was no identified finance for major and substantial improvements officers would where possible investigate what could be added to help cyclists. Therefore, having regard to the information set out in the report and the representations made to her at the meeting she confirmed her decision as follows:

to approve the proposed amended traffic calming measures on Northcourt Road, Abingdon as advertised.

Signed……………………………………..

Cabinet Member for Environment

Date of signing……………………………