To the Town Hall today ....

[TheOstrich]

… with Pitchforks!

Today was the first day of the exhibition mounted by the County Council Highways Dept. setting out how they're going to spend £3.45m solving all the road traffic ills in the town. As far as I can see, this involves (1) putting in cycle lanes on the town centre bypass, (2) getting rid of a key roundabout and (3) making a key link road past Asda one-way.

Well, I arrived half an hour after it opened and to say the atmosphere was febrile would be an understatement. There were a lot of folk already there and, on a scale of 1 (strongly agree) to 5 (strongly disagree), the temperature was between 7 ("You must be joking!" ) and 8 (clowns and idiots!)

I made a few verbal representations along the lines of (1) we already have an existing cycle route through the town centre, so why encourage they beggars onto the bypass with its heavy lorries and farm vehicles (2) looks very nice, but if you're a resident of the small estate situated just off the roundabout, you're now going to have an enforced left turn and won't be able to turn back on yourself (thanks to the ill-conceived one-way system) until you reach the Wiltshire boundary, and (3) you do realise that the one-way street will be the only way (now you're getting rid of the roundabout) that the school bus transport can access the bypass, meaning twice a day 10 full-size buses in 15 minutes will be trying to traverse it, which will be a nightmare, and if you're trying to keep the street-side parking in that road as well, you're having a complete giraffe!

I did ask about a proper relief road, in conjunction with all the new building in the next 15 years, across the south end of the town, but was told it would cost "hundreds of millions", so was a complete non-starter.

Many visitors were taking the opportunity to berate the poor Highways people about multiple other problems across most of North Dorset, which were totally beyond their remit, but there we go ....

Filled in the manual response form, fairly, mind you, only two "Strongly Disagrees" and (having done my Civic duty for this year) duly left a happy bunny!

[saundra]

With a free cuppa and a biscuit like giving blood I hope they won't take one bit of notice any
way

[JanB]

Don't know why they have these exhibitions - they just do what they want anyway.

Hope you all get it sorted or stopped.

And where did common sense disappear to?

[meriad]

And where did common sense disappear to?

Who knows Jan, but I wish it would come back. We're having a similar issue where I live with an unsustainable amount of new development being planned. Our village will not be able to cope with the extra traffic, and neither will the schools or GP surgery cope with the increased number of residents.

madness, it really really is

[saundra]

There are 100a of new homes being built her you can't get on a drs list no dentist s and nearest fully working hospital is at Scarborough 25miles away while local hospital is half closed just madness

[cruiser2]

New cycle lanes have recently been installed at a major roundabout which is controlled by traffic lights. It took 18 months to complete the work at a cost of several millions of pounds. It is near a large supermarket and several other stores susch as Halfords and Currys. THere was a grand opening by a well known cyclist. He is probably one of the very few people who have used it.
More cycle lanes and traffic lights have also been installed at one of the junctions on the M^ motorway. Itdoes make it easier and safer coming off the motorway as traffic went very fast on the roundabout.
The local council have also put a green statue on a small area of grass near the town centre. It is of a woman with a brush. It is about ten feet tall. Surprisinglly it has not yet been vandalised.

[saundra]

We've got a new scheme out today to redevelop our train station it even shows sea views got to laugh it's miles from the sea front the other side of town
You couldn't make it up

[JoM]

We've got this new designer outlet village being built so there are road 'improvements' being done.
One road is closed from this week until early September but one of the roads in the diversion, a dual carriageway, has one lane coned off (and not any work being done that can be seen) and it's creating chaos.
Ossie, you'll probably know how far it is from Cannock to Hednesford...the local Facebook page has been full the last couple of nights with people commenting about how it's taken them over an hour to get from one to the other. It's a distance of 2 miles.

We've got one particular road layout here where the A5, A34 and A460 all meet, there're also slip roads on and off the M6 Toll and a couple of retail parks built around it just for good measure. It's got to be the worst designed bit of road that you could imagine and has been rebuilt and changed a couple of times in the last 15 years since the Toll was built and it's still no better.

[Workingman]

Some months back we had a "consultation" about new road layouts, bus lanes, cycle lanes, traffic lights and a roundabout to be abandoned.

Four of the six sets of drawings and models "the team" brought along were for another part of town. After lots of verbals a LibDem council candidate got up on a chair and announced that he would be taking details of any FOI requests about the scheme people would like to make.

The meeting broke up in acrimony and the avalanche of information emails from the present councillors dried up. The scheme looks to have fallen into a crevasse noire.

[TheOstrich]

We've got one particular road layout here where the A5, A34 and A460 all meet, there're also slip roads on and off the M6 Toll and a couple of retail parks built around it just for good measure. It's got to be the worst designed bit of road that you could imagine and has been rebuilt and changed a couple of times in the last 15 years since the Toll was built and it's still no better.

If that's the one I think you're referring to, Jo, I used to come off the M6 Toll there to access the A34 Walsall Road south into Great Wyrley (Wolverhampton Sporting Community FC in Hazel Lane being the attraction ). I remember it was a complete 'mare trying to get across the A5 traffic on the roundabout to get at the right exit. I think there was some sort of traffic light control system on it, but many people ignored it? Never liked that junction …..

Never braved that roundabout in the opposite direction - I used to go back home cross-country via Pelsall!