(Diana Smith and Olly Wells in Beechwood Road. Olly lives on the border of St Johns and Knaphill, and is a Governor at St. Johns school, just up the road. See ‘34/35 assurance’ below)

 Lower Guildford Road

We approved the initial study for a Puffin crossing over Lower Guildford Road just below Northwood Avenue. It could not be placed any further up, because of problems with the road. A lot of people cross this road, including school children, and children going to the playground. 

Along with the crossing we’ll get a 30mph speed limit, and a number of Vehicle Activated Signs on the roads around the Hermitage Roundabout. 

One objection was a potential increase in the misuse of a small service road running past the entry to the Lansbury Estate. After this scheme was published, I went with the Local Transport Officer concerned to listen to some of the residents’ worries. Standing there for about half an hour, it was clear cars used it avoided coming out onto the lower Guildford Road before turning right into Northwood Avenue; and similarly in the other direction. Since this is part of the highway, this is ‘rat-running’ it wouldn’t usually come high in any list of priorities for road works. But the crossing may put residents in a much worse position if it means drivers can easily see they can avoid the crossing by nipping down parallel to the main road.  

So the Local Transport Office will be looking into possibilities for closing one end of the road and consulting with local residents. The report will come back to the Local Committee in June. 

Beechwood Road 

Beechwood Road is a steep and winding residential road which takes a lot of through traffic. The picture does here gives an idea, but does not show the whole picture because it was taken in the daytime and at half term, with not many parked cars and relatively low traffic. Residents have been concerned for years by the difficulty of negotiating it safely, and a worrying record of near-misses, minor incidents and damage.  This year each County

The good news is that ‘Knaphill Scheme A, Beechwood Road– Speed Reduction and accessibility improvements’ has come in with a ranking order of 25 out of 91 for cost effectiveness. It now has funding planned for an Initial Design in 2008/9. The bad news that is that construction wouldn’t be until 2010/2011, at best. But this was the highest ranked scheme of any put forward, and the only not entirely on the back burner with no dates for work. So I feel pleased. 

Scheme 2 – Barrs Lane I suggested a change of the speed limit to 30 mph by the houses and the construction of a footpath because of the clear ‘desire line’ where people actually walk down towards Mizens Railway. It was accepted as a scheme, but only came out ranked 74, which is not hopeful.  However I also suggested that such a scheme would have a pre-requisite better drainage, and also might need a controlled crossing of Anchor Hill to allow pedestrians from Goldsworth Park to reach it, not to mention that many residents would like to be able to cross lower down than the traffic lights to get to Waterer’s Park with their children, and … 

Anchor Hill – Pedestrian Crossing Facility … 

… is now at number 30 in the rankings, albeit without any proposals for when the funding would be made available for construction. We’ll need to keep gathering evidence and argument for this one.  Barrs Lane/ Anchor Hill Flooding About a year ago I put a motion to Council suggesting that flooding should be tackled much more systematically because with changes in weather patterns it is a problem affecting the whole of Surrey. At that time I was told by a senior Officer that moves to create a database of problem places for flooding in

34/35 Assurance

Olly Wells asked a formal public question about the 34 /35 bus service, which is losing its Section 106 money (popularly known locally as ‘The Sainsbury Money’ in April. We knew that there was money being assigned to section 106 replacement money in Surrey’s budget, but not that it would definitely go to maintain this service, particularly in the evenings and at weekends. Olly pretty well got this assurance in a written answer from Laurie James, Service Planning Team Manager, Transport for Surrey:

‘The supplementary funding announced in the Leader’s Budget Statement, to replace monies for bus services previously obntained through Section 106, is welcomed. Services 34 /35 are recognised as being important routes in the Woking area and have seen significant patrnage grownth since they were enhanced in 2002.’

‘At present there are no plans to fundamentally vary the level of service on routes 34/35. However, like all supported bus services, they are periodically reviewed to ensure that they continue to provide good value for money in terms of the investment being made as there will be an ongoing need to provide support to services across the county which is sustainable and within the funding allocated by the Executive.’

Olly asked a supplementary to try to get further reassurance. Laurie James (bus guru par excellence at SCC) was not present. My notes become a little unclear here, but I believe it was Iain Reeve, in charge of Transport for Surrey, who replied : ‘Supplementary funding will continue with that particular bus route for the time being’ and ‘I don’t see any particular reduction with that particular route.’

I feel this is genuinely good news, and that we have to continue to demonstrate our support for good local bus services by being very aware of any threat to them.  ‘  

 Less good bit – Raglan, Victoria, Inkerman crossroads  

Although improving this junction had a high ranking initially, the traffic engineers cannot see any effective and generally acceptable way to improve it beyond the traffic refuges and traffic calming measures already in place. So it’s now been dropped from the list. Please let me know if you feel strongly about this.