46 comments

• Comment Link Friday, 10 July 2020 10:15 posted by Yvonne

  Totally agree with Ben
• Comment Link Friday, 10 July 2020 07:55 posted by Paul Hill

  This scheme is totally unwarranted. If this scheme goes ahead I will feel so very sorry for people that have to travel from the village by car to work each day. They will have to work their way east towards the A308 which is already gridlocked and this will increase their commute time, the amount of fuel used and the amount of pollution that they will inhale in their cars while stuck in their vehicles in the even longer queues to Sunbury Cross that the scheme will create.
  Anyone on one side of the village that needs to travel to routes and villages on the other side in their car/van will also need to travel up to the Sunbury Cross and then back down south towards Haliford, adding further to the additional fuel use and therefor pollution.
  Lower Sunbury is a working village with a vibrant community and people going to and fro about their lawful business, Do not make it a podestrianised model village. Where residents are trapped by convoluted traffic routes to get in and out of the village.
• Comment Link Friday, 10 July 2020 07:42 posted by S Minhinnick

  Absolutely ridiculous, for anyone living like myself at the west end of Nursery rd this would cut us off from anything to the west with Nursey rd being blocked off at the west end, to go that way would involve a long journey via Sunbury-On-Thames cross and in heavy traffic easily adding an hr to do a journey that would take a couple of minutes, my wife works in Cheam so blocking off all the access west will make her life hell. This is the worst idea ever and cause so many movement problems for residents, I am disabled so mobility is a broblemfor me and this will be like making me a prisoner in my own home, Ian so disappointed by these plans and has already ready caused my depression to worsen.
• Comment Link Friday, 10 July 2020 06:26 posted by Kerry carmody

  Given all the justified outrage on here and Sunbury FB site - are we demanding an official review with council.?
  My concern is no matter how many people write in they will do it anyway. The only traffic issue is traffic queuing to get onto Sunbury roundabout and as far as I can see this will make it worse!
• Comment Link Thursday, 09 July 2020 22:58 posted by jon wallsgrove

  This is an absolutely appalling scheme which will destroy the village. It must never never go ahead.
  It is a very thoroughly thought out and thoroughly evil scheme to block off every road in and out of Sunbury. It will turn Sunbury into a high security prison camp. Nobody living in the village will be able to get into the village centre for the shops, pubs, restaurants and parks. Nobody from the surrounding area will be allowed access to the village, especially customers. It will totally destroy all the businesses in Sunbury. Only two points of access to Sunbury are proposed to be allowed – both off the hideous and appallingly congested M3 roundabout at Sunbury Cross. People living here will have to go on detours of typically about 4 miles via the M3 to visit their own village. To deliver something or pick someone up from the west side of the cordoned off zone, if you live east of the zone (or vice versa) will be an 8 mile detour to travel a distance of a few 100 yards. No locals would be able to have a wedding or funeral at the church, with no vehicle access. No passing tourists would be able to see the beauty of the village and want to stay. The glorious riverside drive would be banned to everyone, locals and visitors. No tourists visiting the attractions, campsites, hotels or the riverside parks in the immediate locality would be able to visit the village for their staycations. Villagers living inside or outside the cordoned off zone but working in Surrey or west London would have to add an extra half hour to their commute due to the vastly increased congestion being deliberately caused.
  Even worse is that infirm villagers will not be able to get to the Sunbury health centre or the dentist or the local chemist, since the residential areas would be cut off from the village centre. Likewise an emergency hospital visit will require huge detours and delays, threatening lives. A high percentage of the residents of Sunbury village are elderly, especially on the river front and islands, which are proposing to be cut off from the village centre. They would even be banned from visiting the cemetery to put flowers on the graves of their loved ones.
  Personally, if I want to do the week’s shopping (i.e. more than I can carry by hand) in my local shops half a mile away (or if I want to do my local shopping on route to elsewhere) I will have to travel 4 miles past the shops in Upper Halliford, past the major Tescos, past the shops on Staines Road West, and past the Sunbury Cross Shopping Centre. Half the residents in the village will be in a similar situation. This can only have a devastating effect on our local village shops.
  The objective of this scheme is supposedly “to remove all east-west through traffic from the Lower Sunbury area, which means the only traffic entering the area would be resident”. Surrey CC have completely misunderstood the traffic movements in the area. The people travelling east-west are largely the local villagers, plus some from the adjacent villages of Halliford and Shepperton. They are travelling to work or the shops in Kingston, Walton or Staines. They are visiting parks and other leisure pursuits along the Thames. This can easily be ascertained by locals who notice that almost everyone following the Thames (Lower Hampton Road, Thames Street, Fordbridge Road) turns off into or from the side streets or residential areas or roads up to Sunbury Cross.
  The purpose of the Government funding for this scheme is to encourage businesses such as local shops, restaurants and pubs to survive, and to encourage people to go back to shopping on the High Street (e.g., Walton , Kingston and Staines). This scheme does precisely the opposite of what the Government rightly wants to achieve. The scheme will kill all the shops, restaurants and pubs in Sunbury, by blocking access for their customers, just as they are re-opening. The residents of Sunbury will be blocked from visiting local towns and high streets, and from enjoying parks and leisure pursuits along the Thames. There are no benefits whatsoever to this scheme. Local main roads will be infinitely more congested, dangerous and polluting. The scheme will make life for Sunbury residents a living hell, being imprisoned in a prison camp with all the local facilities bankrupted or barred from access.
  This appalling scheme must never go ahead!!
• Comment Link Thursday, 09 July 2020 21:02 posted by Sue

  Halliford Road is partially within Lower Sunbury but is very often ignored and it’s been ignored again here.
  Halliford Road appears to be one of the routes that people who are prevented from accessing Sunbury Village from Walton direction on the river road will have to travel up (increase in traffic) as well as handling the traffic that will have to turn right at the bottom as unable to turn left through Lower Sunbury Village.
  Add to that the issues for all this traffic - plus local residents who live on or just off Halliford Road - trying to exit (and access) this road from the junction with Upper Halliford Road which is already gridlocked during rush hour (or times when there is a closure on M3/M25) as the Halliford by-pass is gridlocked and traffic then travels through the very village the by-pass is supposed to by-pass ... Upper Halliford.
  So please, don’t just think ‘Lower Sunbury Village will be nicely pedestrianised, how lucky we are’ and think about other parts that are still Lower Sunbury and our neighbours in the wider Sunbury, Shepperton and Charlton vicinity.
  
  Other controls could be placed that would still allow access but also cater for better safety for all:
  • Limitation on vehicle size on certain roads (HGVs of various sizes on Halliford Road and the river road is stupid and dangerous).
  • Average speed check cameras rather than randomly placed cameras that people know are there and slow down for but speed up either side.
  • Better prohibition of parking on pavements.
  • Build a footbridge across the Thames at Lower Sunbury .... it’s been talked about for at least 25 years! Bikes can also cross but they would need to be wheeled rather than ridden.
  • At known busy junctions either control turn left/right or paint and monitor yellow hatched lines.
  
  These might achieve similar results in improving safety and reducing some traffic without alienating and causing even further painful congestion and frustration to local residents.
• Comment Link Thursday, 09 July 2020 19:44 posted by Giles

  This scheme is complete madness. It is poorly thought through with no knowledge or understanding of the requirements of local people. The points already made by ‘Ben’ set out most of the issues very clearly. To them I would add the following
  1. In the event of any traffic issues at Sunbury Cross all access out of the village would be blocked. This happens at least every few months and even without these bonkers plans it causes utter chaos. We have to retain alternative ways out of the village other than via the already congested Sunbury Cross.
  2. This plan will cause huge congestion to the already very busy Avenue and Green St damaging the accessibility of schools and businesses.
  3. My family school car sharing arrangements for travel towards Hampton will be impossible so this scheme will immediately increase the number of cars travelling out from Sunbury and back from 1 to 3.
  
  This scheme needs to be stopped as will result in the exact opposite of its stated objectives. The words hare and brained fail to do justice to the stupidity of these proposals.
  
  The bridge giving access from Sunbury to Walton by foot or by cycle would be a worthy cause for the attention of the planners,
• Comment Link Thursday, 09 July 2020 19:26 posted by Linda

  Our lives in Lower Sunbury are already blighted by ‘the men in Lycra brigade’ who use the lower Sunbury road as a weekend cycle sprinting track!
  Everything Ben has said in an earlier comment is correct. This will not improve our lives. I’m sick and tired of Lower Sunbury constantly being used as fodder for political gain.
• Comment Link Thursday, 09 July 2020 18:52 posted by KG

  I think this is a ridiculous idea. It will increase traffic at Sunbury cross, it will cause heavy traffic elsewhere, making more people late for work. It will push traffic to take the same routes.
  This increases carbon footprint as the traffic will take longer to finish their journey.
  This money would be better spent on the suggested walk and cycle bridge over the Thames to connect Sunbury to Walton thus reducing traffic on roads.
• Comment Link Thursday, 09 July 2020 18:26 posted by Ron

  I think this is a ridiculous idea it will cause heavy traffic elsewhere making more people late for work all traffic Will be taking the same routes