Market Street parking

Mon 26 Jul 2010, 18:00

The school time car parking is fine as it gives the lollipop lady an inbuilt advantage in slowing down vehicles approaching the crossing point! Where the problem of fast traffic is most acute is with the increasing popularity of My Time after school clubs as LOTS of kids are out at 4.00, 5.00 and 6.00pm when the lollipop lady is long gone and the parking has reduced and I frequently have to wait on the traffic island in the middle of the road while cars going roaring past at 40-50 mph which is ludicrous. We need either a speed camera always armed or an average time-over-route pair of cameras as well as a Pelican crossing like that which one of my son's schoolmates cousin had to get killed 11 or so years back so that we "deserved" the crossing by Londis. If one is OK for Londis crossing why isn't it acceptable to have one outside the school where so many out of hours children are involved in the very lively after school clubs. I've been a school governor for coming on 35 years until moving here and the Charlbury school is so far out ahead in after school activities that it makes comparisons with my old primary and secondary schools look pathetic. Motor cars must be reined in as they now dictate life on the streets. When you and I were kids we played all day on the streets during the holidays and weekends because cars were so rare and also drivers expected the streets to be full of kids and didn't usually drive out of 3rd gear and 20mph off the main roads. It was "not done" and I threw a stone (very accurately I was hardball pitcher for my school baseball team!!) through the window of more than one speeder going down our street, this was a rough steel town area and we were a tough lot!

What Charlbury needs is something similar to Oxford's "20 is Plenty" campaign enforced by speed cameras. I never do over 20 over most roads locally in town except where I don't sit on the brakes down the big dipper where I still have to light up the road speed sign for the last couple of years but am definitely going over 20 there... A couple of speed bumps would reinforce the point however. As an aside since the speed bumps were removed from the Enstone Rd crossroads approach it now takes ages to get across the road as people don't wave you over as they approach, whereas when slowed down by the speed bumps people were hugely more likely to wave one across as they were already going slowly. And THAT crossroads is another area in need of traffic crossing lights as there are now so many new babies and Toddlers in The Green, Jacksons Piece and so forth due to generational turnover as older people downsize after grown up kids.