Tag Archives: 20mph

Cars and parking, Council reports, cuts, Roads, Surgery, Your councillor

Things you need to know happened in February

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Very positive news about speeding in Woodbridge and sorting the Thoroughfare issues offset news of yet more budget cuts and library cuts. There is also hope for Woodbridge for the new Park & Ride. I’m also planning to  ‘claim’ a piece of land for a bus stop.

Suffolk’s County  Budget 2017-8   Suffolk County Council’s County Budget 2017-18 was set at the beginning of February. The  Conservative emphasis was on keeping spend down and how they have amassed large reserves over the past seven years of zero council tax rises.  Labour wanted to spend to preserve services and give the residents of Suffolk what they need. Lib Dems felt the Conservatives were cutting too hard but Labour were spending at the top limit of what would be possible.

In the end the administration carried the day and a further £30 million will be cut from services.

Suffolk Library Services suffer further cut   Amongst the many cuts to this year’s budget,  Suffolk County Council is inflicting a further £230,000 cut to the library service.  (£280,000 if we include the archives) .

Over the last years, staff and volunteers have worked  to keep all the  Suffolk libraries open as IPSs and to increase and improve provision across the county. They consider they have already streamlined  services as far as practicable. Investing in the immense range of things our libraries do so well and  so cheaply is building social capital that benefits Suffolk in a huge range of ways. In my view it is simple madness to damage it or throw it away.

In the last ten days  on the streets of Woodbridge,  I managed to get 1200 signatures for a petition which says “We oppose any further reductions to the funding of Suffolk’s invaluable and irreplaceable library services, and urge Suffolk County Council not to make this cut. “ The people who signed were of all ages, backgrounds  and political affiliations – the eldest was 101.  The one thing they agreed on was that these cuts were unacceptable. Over and over again the signatories’  comments repeated the fact that our libraries are ‘essential’, ‘vital’, and that users want “No more cuts!”. At the budget meeting I asked  the administration, on behalf of the people I represent, to withdraw this cut.

Sadly, they did not listen.

20 mph zone and calming  proposals for Woodbridge   We are on target to get the report to the Suffolk County Council Speed Panel for the meeting of 22 February where I will present it.
(STOP PRESS: I GOT IT THROUGH. More to follow)

Woodbridge Thoroughfare Working Group update   This is meeting very productively with reps from all Woodbridge’s elected parties, and councils, the police, the Highways officers, the traders and the residents  with the aim of trying to find consensus for a short, mid- and long-term plan to improve footfall and preserve the future of the Woodbridge Thoroughfare in all its aspects because it is the heart of Woodbridge and the lifeblood of the town.

A sticking point is enforcement, and only some of the enforcement issues can be solved by the prospective decriminalisation of parking offences and its transfer from the police to Suffolk Coastal District Council.

(Speeding issues could be assisted by a change in speed limit. STOP PRESS: The Thoroughfare is part of the newly agreed 20mph zone See above!)

As the mystifying signs at the beginning of the Thoroughfare are the legal consequence of the current TRO (traffic regulation order) it would seem sensible to simplify the TRO (hopefully in advance of the transfer) so as to be able to discourage unnecessary through traffic by correct, legal and simple signs.(Read all about the complexities of the situation here)

Currently questionnaires about usage, access, and deliveries  are being filled in by traders and residents, and various options of simple signage are being investigated to best reflect the consensus. A TRO could be built around this

Proposals for Ipswich Northern Bypass – and how each may pact on Woodbridge With Ipswich coming to a standstill every rush hour and every closure of the Orwell bridge, a progress report into the need for additional road capacity to the north of Ipswich, has been published (aka  the long-proposed Ipswich Northern bypass).

Initial broad route corridors have been considered for a potential link between the A12 and A14; and are:

  • an inner corridor from Martlesham to Claydon
  • an middle corridor from Woodbridge to Claydon
  • and an outer corridor from Melton to Needham Market.

All of these will impact on residents of Woodbridge.

Preliminary traffic modelling has indicated that roads in each of these corridors would have different effects on traffic eg. an outer corridor would have more benefit to longer distance trips than trips more local to the Ipswich area.

Each potential corridor would also have different impacts on the environment, and on the potential to support future growth.

The next stage of study will examine route options in more detail, including traffic, economic and environmental impacts. It will also consider the extent to which the options might support potential future scenarios for housing and employment growth beyond 2031.

You can download the report in full here https://www.suffolk.gov.uk/roads-and-transport/public-transport-bus-pass-and-transport-planning/consultations-and-studies/

Proposed Bus Shelter opposite Notcutts  Having been unable to find out ownership of the untended strip of land next to the Cherry Tree on which there is a broken bench, SCC Highways intends to put up notices ‘claiming’ it so as to allow us to put up a bus stop there without (potentially) being sued!

County Councillor’s Surgery  My monthly  County Councillor’s  surgery in the library, now in its 6th year, continues to bring in more and more people. December’s surgery had people waiting for the 9am start, was packed from start to finish, and lasted for three and a half hours (so finished an hour and a half late) due to pressure of numbers.

The overwhelming issues are parking, speeding, road surfaces, and pedestrian problems. However I deal with issues as different as  deportations, youth issues,  special educational needs problems, social care crises, homelessness, and charitable organisation support. Unfortunately I had to cancel February’s surgery through illhealth – the first time I’ve ever done this in over 6 years.

There will only be to more surgeries in the remainder of this electoral cycle:18th March – and my final surgery of this electoral cycle on 15 April.

Roads, Woodbridge, Your councillor

Woodbridge 20mph limit – what you may have missed!

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Woodbridge has wanted 20 mph zoning for years but my work over the last year has been required to make it possible
Woodbridge has been asking for 20 mph zoning for years but it needed a change of policy from SCC – and all the work I and other policy panel members have put in over the last year to make it possible

Recent coverage in the EADT of Woodbridge Town Council’s deliberations on a 20mph zone failed completely to acknowledge the work I have been putting in, both as your councillor, and as longstanding member of the Suffolk transport policy development panel, to get the issue on the map and solve it.

I have been attempting to get speeding restrictions in Woodbridge since I became a county councillor, but had been stymied by a lack of standardisation across the county  – an ad hoc muddle which came to an abrupt halt a few years back when a previous SCC Cabinet member declared he would allow no more traffic restrictions.  The county had enough of them, he said!   (Talk about treating the county as a personal fiefdom!)

As founder member of the Suffolk cross-party Transport and Highways policy development panel which was set up under the last SCC Leader, Mark Bee , I was one of the councillors who developed a standard framework  for Suffolk  to assess and agree 20mph zones. This was to replace the chaos which existed before.

As County Councillor, I also ensured that Woodbridge was then placed on the list for assessment for 20mph zoning in fulfilment of  its longstanding  and oft-articulated desire for this . Woodbridge has been on this list since last September. The reason it has not progressed is made clear below.

All of this was clearly summarised  in my annual  Report to Woodbridge Town Council of a couple of months ago, and posted on my blog, for both Woodbridge Town Council and the EADT to refer to!

This letter I wrote on the subject  appeared in yesterdays EADT (22/07/2015).

Dear Sir

Last week  you reported Woodbridge Town Council’s deliberations over speeding and a  local community appeal for a 20mph zone.  However there was no mention in your report that Woodbridge has been on  the SCC waiting-list  to be assessed for 20mph status since last September!

Over the last couple of years the County Council had established a successful cross-party ‘policy development panel’(PDP) – of I was a founder member – to make sure that Suffolk’s transport and highways policy in areas such as speed limits  was finally standardised  to benefit the whole county equally via a joined-up approach.

Woodbridge, which has long needed a 20mph limit, was due to benefit from this refreshingly practical system.

Unfortunately since Suffolk’s mid-term change of leadership, this extremely useful and proactive panel’s  scheduled regular meetings have been cancelled at a few hours’ notice.  I wrote to ask the reason and for conformation as to whether this productive and hardworking PDP would continue to meet in the future. In reply we were told, “I hope to have a clear future policy on these groups before too long!”

The group was halfway through various pieces of work, continuing the clear benefits to Suffolk that the work of the PDP has shown from the start. If valuable work and joined-up policy-making are to be put to one side because of SCC’s mid-term change of leadership it is to the disbenefit of all Suffolk residents, including my constituents in Woodbridge, still waiting patiently for their long-needed lower speed limit

Let us see what now transpires!