Speed Watch

Thu 11 Jul, 22:55 (last edited on Fri 12 Jul, 07:21)

Jim, five or six years go, Liz Reason was in conversation with me and others about traffic calming on the Slade and in the town centre. We talked about chicanes on the Slade but I don't think there were ever drawn-up plans back then. For the town centre, Liz commissioned some drawings and plans for a redesigned Spendlove area, attempting to make it into a cohesive space that works as a 'place' you might like to visit rather than what we have currently which is four car parks designed and built separately and all owned by different entities. You can see those plans for the Spendlove here and here: they do make an assumption about how much garden (and car parking) the surgery would be willing to sell!

More recently, about two years ago, the Town Council's Journeys team made a couple of site visits to the Slade and Enstone crossroads with County Council officers where we walked up and down the road and considered ways of making the road/junction slower for vehicles, and more appealing for pedestrians and cyclists.

I think and hope that the ideas that we suggested will one day come to fruition. So far, two of the suggestions have come to fruition. One is the build-out on Enstone Road, partly funded by the County Council and partly by the Town Council. The other is the zebra crossing near the school (same 50:50 funding). What we had asked for and hoped for there were build-outs into the road from both pavements with the zebra crossing joining them, but it didn't work out as well as we had hoped. The build-outs on the zebra crossing are tiny and ineffective. But I think most people agree that the existence of the zebra crossing is better than the pedestrian refuge which had existed previously.

At that time I was a Town Councillor, and the ambition was to continue seeking approval and funding every couple of years to install build-outs at the other entrances to the town on Witney Road., Woodstock Road and Burford Road. Hopefully it still is.

On the Slade, the County Council concluded that there wasn't enough room for a cycle path but they felt that we could install a couple of large build-outs into the road which would have the effect of narrowing the carriageway (slowing traffic), shortening the width of road which pedestrians need to cross to get to the other side, and potentially if the build-outs could have a tree on them, then as the trees grew they would break up the visual effect for drivers of there being a bit of a toboggan run down the hill and up the other side. The County Council also recommended a zebra crossing at the top of Dancers Hill. This was all fed into a 'Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan' for the town,

Recommendations for improvements to the Slade, as well as to a lot of other locations around the town, will eventually come to the town (the public) in the form of an official consultation on the Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan which the County Council would approve if the town liked it. Then there would be funding bids to the central government (not a quick process) to fund the schemes that the County and Town Council can't afford.

It's not quite as simple as that but that's the gist of it, hope this helps. Disclaimer – I am no longer a Town Councillor but am still a member of its Journeys team which is a group comprised of members of the public and councillors, which progresses traffic matters around the town. Anyone who is a resident in the town could be co-opted to join that team and a number of teams, which deal with things like buildings efficiency, and land and nature.

Simon, regarding speeding, Charlbury has a Speedwatch Group. If you would like to join their ranks and help record vehicle speeds and pass them to police, you can contact the coordinator at cswcharlbury@outlook.com.