The Local Highways Panel meeting last Friday was probably the best so far. Though only two out of five County Councillors were there (Tracy Chapman and Stephen Castle).
How County Highways define stationary traffic. We got some interesting information on how County Highways monitor traffic flow, for example when they studied the Rawreth Lane / Hullbridge Road junction. They check on the speed of traffic from TomToms satnav systems in cars. Information on the speed of cars with TomToms is fed straight to the County Control centre. To see why any delays occur, County Highways install temporary video cameras. So, far example, we saw on video the incident of the bus stopping for 4 minutes.
We also found out that for the County Council, “stationary” means stopped for a whole 4 or 5 minutes without moving. So if you are going home along Rawreth Lane, and stop for two minutes at the Asda lights, two minutes at the Downhall Park Way lights, and two minutes at the mini-roundabout at the end, as far as the County Council are concerned, you really aren’t stationary at all! This explains a lot….
Meanwhile, back in the real world, we discussed what to do at this junction. We supported two ideas. One was to move, if possible, the bus stop for travel to Rayleigh onto the area of grass verge slightly uphill of the existing stop. The other was to try and reduce congestion caused by vehicles turning right from Hullbridge Road into Hambro Parade. The aim would be to clear the entrance of parked cars, and provide replacement parking on the wide area of pavement.
Two Proposals for Pedestrian Crossings are NOT killed off. One is in Hullbridge Road, opposite Lubards Farm.The other is in Bradley Way in Rochford, Both had had surveys done, in both cases the highways engineers felt the figures didn’t justify the crossings. However Gill Lucas -Gill and Tracy Chapman still supported the Bradley Way proposal and Chris Black argued that the number of pedestrians crossing in Hullbridge Road was so low because there wasn’t a crossing. The end result was that they will come back for further discussion at the next meeting and may well go through, even if it means elected Conservative and Lib Dem Councillors upsetting the shighways engineers a little.
Parking at the top of Love Lane. Keith Hudson mentioned a letter from Mark Francois regarding the amount of evening parking at the top of Love Lane causing problems getting in and out of the junction with the High Street.
Grange Gardens The highways officers were thanked for getting the road repaired. Apparently there were 145 cases of it being reported to Highways…..
Ron Oatham
Trevor Parrett
Bruce Smart
Chris Stanley
Pam Waldie
Elena Black
Rochford District Council carries out grass cutting on behalf of the County Council.
If you see a grass verge that badly needs cutting, you can report it
This is the official master document for planning policy in our district! To download it, click here
