As Vice Chair of the North East Area Committee I have asked for Joy White (the author of these proposals) to come along and update us on the response to the consultation and what the likely options may be. That meeting is happening on Tuesday 20 July at New Marston Primary School, Copse Lane at 6 pm. You are very welcome to come along and hear the latest news on this! I shall ensure there will be an opportunity for the public to ask questions and give comments.
Headington Lib Dems
Altaf-Khan, Chris Smowton and Roz Smith are your local councillors
The central issue is WHAT OPTION DOES THE COUNCIL NOT HAVE. I am not trying to be funny, but this whole consultation has missed the fundamental point that the county is committed to traffic calming in Highfield. The Council does not have the option to do nothing. That’s the starting point, which must be impressed upon the council.
The core reason is that it engaged in s106 agreements for traffic calming, which cannot be overturned retrospectively by a public vote. In the case of The Brambles, the county went to law to secure payment. It has so far failed but matters do not end there, as I will comment below. The Council is democratically elected to secure the best arrangements for traffic control and movement.. This does not by any measure mean allowing three-quarters of traffic on residential streets to be avoiding traffic lights, pedestrian crossings and congestion on the primary and distributor routes. Local residents will never reach a consensus on restrictions brought by local authority transport and planning decisions to ensure areas maintain their residential status for the future. There are too many alleged inconveniences from changing anything at all.
The options the council has may be many in implementing measures. None of us knows how far it will go. But the primary need is positively to reduce speeds and through traffic movements – rat running – with meaningfully restrictive on-road controls on these residential back roads.
Extensive corner narrowing, build outs, humps or platforms, and parking reviews are the quid pro quo if councillors shrink away from upsetting those residents who don’t want right-turn bans for their own personal benefit as opposed to any substantive motive concerning the liveability of residential areas in the face of road traffic generation by approved development and a decade of refusal by the county to act to prevent rat running.
It is absolutely crucial for the County to understand that the 75% of traffic on local roads which is rat running is dumping through traffic into residential neighbourhoods. Removing a proportion of this 75% to Windmill Road and Gipsy Lane is restoring the balance. It is NOT creating extra traffic for the distributor routes. The traffic ALREADY exists.
I feel sure that if the Council backs off in the light of the selfish personal disapproval of residents to any long-term protection of a liveable residential neighbourhood in Highfield, there will be consequences. Some of us will look at maldministration as we get the sequence of inaction following the Brambles s.106 Agreement fiasco 7 years ago investigated.
Please do your best to get the Council’s firm admittance that they do have to act in some fashion, even if some residents don’t want No right turns to protect their own personal convenience.