The email below has been sent to LOSRA by Nick Healey, the Area Highway Manager for Surrey County Council and makes for an interesting read:
"Following the Government’s recent announcements we have been working with Borough and District Council officer colleagues to identify potential Active Travel schemes across the county. One project that is being put forwards is in the Lower Sunbury area. This is an area with significant potential to increase walking and cycling, and which has a history of casualties on all the main roads that run through it. One factor that residents frequently say is a discouragement to walking and/or cycling is their concerns about safety due to the volume and speed of traffic. At school run times, Lower Sunbury can become heavily congested, despite the catchment areas for the local schools being relatively small.
"To try to address this we are developing a scheme of tactical road closures and modal filters. Potential locations for these are marked with a red bar and circle on the attached plan. Where these fall on a bus route, we would implement a “modal filter” which means that only buses, cyclists and pedestrians would be permitted to pass through. Where these do not fall on a bus route, we would implement a “tactical closure” which would be a closure to all motorised vehicles – full access would be maintained for cyclists and pedestrians. The objective of this scheme is to remove all east-west through traffic from the Lower Sunbury area, which means the only traffic entering the area would be residents, or people accessing a specific destination within the area. By removing through traffic, we would hope to make the area much more attractive for residents to walk and cycle within the area – for example accessing local shops or taking their children to school.
"Please note that at this stage the number and locations of the proposed closures are not set in stone. For example it has been suggested that an additional closure should be considered either in Pine Wood or Bracken Wood. The closures are being designed so that they could be changed, adapted and / or removed in response to how people actually use and respond to the scheme.
"Funding has now been made available to deliver this scheme. We are now contacting schools and local associations to inform them of the proposed scheme, and also arranging for notices to be put up on site to inform local residents and drivers. This will give people the opportunity to raise concerns or suggest amendments.
"I would be grateful if you were able to use your networks to push this information out into the local community. If anyone has any comments the best way to pass them to the Council is by e-mail."
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