News: Traffic surveys underway
As the Parish Council announced last Saturday, there is at the moment a range of traffic survey activity being undertaken in the Village.
The intention is to provide a fact-based challenge to some of the assertions made about traffic in the 75-home planning application.
Peak Traffic
On Monday afternoon, cameras were installed to monitor traffic volumes during the Tuesday morning and evening peak hours at these junctions:
- A3057/Coley Lane
- Station Rd/Coley Lane
- Drove Rd/Coley Lane
- Gravel Hill/Martins Lane
The cameras were removed on Wednesday morning. The company providing the service, Idaso, is fully GDPR-compliant.
Traffic and speed
Traffic counts and speed measurements are being taken for 7 days until next Wednesday morning at three measurement points:
- Coley Lane near the 20mph sign as you enter the village from the A3057.
- Coley Lane near River View Close
- Village St between the Abbots Mitre and Cart Lane.
One of the Idaso traffic and speed measurement devices
The measurement site on Village Street
Road widths and hazards
chilbolton.news met Cllr Neil Connor and Alisdair Campbell before they went on a survey of their own. They explained that they would be assessing all nine roads in the Village. They intend to gather information on:
- Road widths
- Speed limits
- Footways
- Junctions
- Blind bends
Intrepid road surveyors (dog for scale)
Added to the physical survey will be the perception survey that was launched at last week’s Village meeting. They would like to have a base of at least 100 responses within the perception survey.
If you would like to contribute your perceptions, download the survey form, complete it and give it to Cllr Neil Connor or Cllr Martin Watson. You can also leave it in the egg shelter outside Martin’s home at the bottom of Drove Road.
Bringing it together
Neil and Alisdair said that the aim is to challenge the Transport Assessment made by Ridge Consulting as part of the application pack for the 75-home development.
They contend that the traffic measurements made by Ridge were unrepresentative in that they only collected vehicle movements around the entrance to the proposed development site. They didn’t measure traffic volumes lower down, at the centre of the Village, which would be affected by additional traffic from the proposed site.
They also pointed out that the comparator sites chosen by Ridge were inappropriate, being much larger than Chilbolton, with road systems that were better able to absorb additional traffic.
All of the information being gathered currently will provide a fact-based analysis of how vehicles from the 75-home development would affect congestion and safety in the wider Village.
This will be part of the Parish Council’s response to the proposed 75-home development.