Earlier this year at the Annual Parish Meeting, Upchurch Parish Councillors and local residents heard from Kent County Council that Councillor Mike Whiting (Cabinet Member) had initiated a project to have interested parishes develop their own Highways Improvement Plan, so that KCC had a clear idea of the local priorities and concerns and could focus their limited resources in the most effective and efficient way.
Upchurch Parish Council agreed to participate and produced a draft plan which was then consulted on throughout the summer. The consultation sought local residents views on whether the plan identified the correct issues, and asked them to highlight any opportunities the Parish Council may have missed and finally to rank the top 3 local highways issues they felt were the most urgent. In addition, I paid for a traffic speed survey earlier from my Swale Borough Council Members Grant Scheme. The survey was conducted for a week in Horsham Lane close to the junction with Crosier Court (at the green BT junction boxes).
There was a good response to the consultation and no doubt about what the three top priorities in the village are! Residents are very clear the priorities are (in rank order); speeding in Horsham Lane, parking in The Street outside the houses directly opposite Horsham Lane and driver behaviour where the road narrows on Oak Lane just before the junction with Wallbridge Lane (if leaving the village).
The Chair of the Parish Council (Tyrone Ripley) and I met with the Engineering Manager at Swale Borough Council and visited each site, we discussed a range of options to reduce risk, improve traffic flows and improve our road network.
You may have noticed that the Parish Council has had a 30 roundel painted at the crest of Horsham Hill coming into the village and as an immediate action at our October meeting the Parish Council approved and agreed to pay for a second roundel to be placed near the bus stop layby (opposite the church gate) for those cars that are going towards Horsham Hill and two 'Slow' signs painted on the road either side of Crosier Court, the contract has been agreed and these will be painted very soon. Our experience is that the roundels painted so far have had an impact and we are hoping to build on that.
We have also submitted proposals to KCC to start the process to deal with the parking in The Street opposite the junction, although there are difficulties and conflicting views about the best approach and to ensure we understand fully the impact on residents any developments involved parking in that section of The Street will require a formal public consultation and consideration by the KCC and Swale Council, Joint Transportation Board. This is a longer-term project and in my experience will take several months maybe as long as two years to complete.
To complete our work on the top three priorities, the Parish Council are also working on a scheme to give vehicles travelling towards the A2 (leaving the village) at the narrowing in Oak Lane priority over those entering the village with a pair of priority signs; it is hoped that informing drivers to 'give way to oncoming vehicles' or that they have 'priority over oncoming vehicles' will influence driver behaviour and reduce the instances of conflict and in particular vehicles mounting the kerb to pass. County Cllr Whiting has kindly agreed to contribute to the cost of that once approved by KCC.
The speed survey in Horsham Lane has given us a baseline speed for the road, a second survey once the changes are made (and settled in) will tell us if there is an actual change to the speeds on the road. In addition, we will re-run the consultation each year to determine residents concerns and priorities so we have both a subjective and objective assessment of the impact in place.
Speed bumps are often referred to as an obvious solution, but they are not a 'silver bullet' there are a number of complications especially around, noise, disruption and ever, more importantly, air pollution. Experience from locations with bumps show that vehicles speed up, then brake, then speed up again and as a result their exhaust fumes are far more toxic and contain more particulates than if they had passed through uninterrupted and to make matters worse in Horsham Lane at the worse traffic time there are often children stood there waiting for a bus.
There are other options for the junction of The Street and Horsham Lane, for example, a bollard island at the end of Horsham Lane that vehicles making the right turn from The Street have to go round, thus forcing them to make a more right-angled turn rather than the sweeping higher speed curve we often see. Another option gaining popularity across Kent is to transform Upchurch into a 20 mph zoned village. Our initial data indicates, however, that the average speeds are a little high to implement that without chicanes and speed cushions or bumps. All these options require extensive development, have significant cost and certainly require public consultation and support, they are longer-term and in my view, it strengthens the villages case to show we have tried and evaluated the alternatives first.
The Parish Council have the development and delivery of the Highways Improvement Plan as a standing agenda item at each meeting, you are most welcome to come along and contribute or ask questions, we would like to hear what you think.
Alan Horton
Upchurch Parish Councillor
and
Ward Councillor serving the residents of Hartlip, Newington and Upchurch
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