The Parish Council has, for the last few years, received comments and complaints about the speed of vehicles in Weston and the lack of safety for pedestrians in some areas of the village.
Many initiatives have been considered, but most of these initiatives were considered either impractical at the time or too expensive to install.
More recently, a speed watch team was created who have done a great job and identified that there are too many motorists who intentionally or unintentionally ignore the speed limit. County Councillor Steve Jarvis organised a check on traffic volumes and average speeds on the five main Weston roads. These demonstrated that the average speed on all five roads was below 30mph.
Times are a’changing
The NHDC Local Plan is expected to be agreed this autumn and this will give the go-ahead for large developments in Great Ashby and two new schools with direct access to the Stevenage to Weston road. This will inevitably lead to more ‘rat running’ through Weston.
There are also 40 homes planned for the fields between Hitchin Road and The Snipe, who along with the existing residents will need safe passage to the village centre.
The upside of these new developments is that they will create, a considerable pot of money for HCC/NHDC to spend on improving infrastructure to support the developments.
One aspect of this is road improvements and Weston PC is determined to try and get its fair share of this ‘new money’. However, to help get the money we need a practical, sustainable and sensible plan.This is where we need your help.
The Parish Council decided at our April meeting to set up a small team of residents to look at practical ideas for traffic management. Obviously pedestrian safety should be the first priority, but that the plan must also recognise that Weston is a working village, and that commercial and farm vehicles are also essential users of our roads.
We are asking everyone who cares about these issues to let us know your thoughts by the end of May 2019.
- Please list what you think the issues are with the most urgent at the top.
- Please also make suggestions of ways to try and deal with these issues. Please think of anyschemes you may have seen elsewhere which have been positive.
You can do this by email to: westonclerk@yahoo.co.uk or by letter to Weston Parish Council, Darnalls Hall, Weston SG4 7AL. Councillor Matthew Hale has agreed to lead this project on behalf of the Council and he will be contacting a few of the people who have expressed an interest in the matter to form the team to distil your ideas into potential solutions, who will aim to have a report by the end of September 2019.
Some work on this subject has been done by professional consultants in other parts of the UK and an illuminating paper can be seen at: https://www.dorsetaonb.org.uk/our-work/rural-roads/traffic-in-villages-toolkit
We look forward to hearing from you.
Weston Parish Council
Welcome to Weston 