Traffic Group Report

Meldreth Traffic Group Report

Introduction

Meldreth Traffic Group is a working group of the Parish Council and local residents; it was formed a few years ago to address traffic issues in the village and to promote and secure improvements to our street environment. Its activities include motor traffic, cyclists and pedestrian issues. We know that increasing traffic volumes in the village are a matter of concern to residents along with prudent safety measures across the whole range of traffic types. The Group’s activities were somewhat reduced during the pandemic and there have been recent changes of membership of the Council. A meeting of the Group was recently held to reinvigorate its activities and this note is a summary of where we are at the moment.

Need for More Volunteers

The Group currently consists of three Councillors, four members of the community and our County Councillor and we urgently need more volunteer help to assist with day to day issues across a range of subjects that this article describes. If you feel that you can help in any way please get in touch either with Councillor Adam Bostanci, who leads the Group from the Council side, or our Parish Clerk Judy Damant. Their contact details are at the end of this report.

Issues of Current Concern

This is not an exhaustive list but seeks to highlight the main issues at the moment. It does not attempt to prioritise the issues set out below but we know that all members of the community will agree that these should be on our list of matters of concern. We do have some positive progress to report on long-standing projects such as our Speedwatch activities and the electronic Speed Indicator Device (SID) that you will have seen at the Stocks, or in Fenny Lane and Whitecroft Road. This is capable of being moved to and from various positions in the village and this is an area where more help would be appreciated. We are actively looking into buying a second such SID so that we can have two on duty and help in moving these from time to time would be greatly welcomed. We will start our list with this and give some recent information about its most recent installation.

Meldreth SID

Here are our latest results (for July and August 2022) from the SID located at the Stocks with the screen facing incoming traffic from the Shepreth direction. Compliance to the 30mph limit overall was good with a few exceptions. A maximum speed of 62mph, double the speed limit, is however, sad to see.

Speeding in the Village

Our Speedwatch project has continued to operate during the summer months and, again, it is an activity where more volunteers would be welcome. We know that the issue of speeding is a matter of concern to residents. There have been two attempts in recent years to secure an award under the Local Highways Initiative (LHI) scheme for traffic calming/anti-speeding measures in Whitecroft Road; neither of these succeeded and only seventeen proposals out of around 45 submitted by local Councils were awarded, with Meldreth’s proposals being about halfway down the list. The Group is actively considering proposing a 20mph speed limit throughout the village; we think that a positive result of this would be a greater likelihood of being able to introduce more traffic calming measures such as chicanes and speed humps.

Road and Footway Conditions

We have an indication that works are planned over the next two years but these are only likely to be large patching and fall short of complete resurfacing. In the meantime concern about potholes continues to be

Departing motor vehicles from Meldreth towards Shepreth

Evaluation time 09 July 2022 to 26 August 2022 Speed Limit Speed Violations Vehicle Numbers Average Speed Maximum Speed 30 mph 19% 15120 26mph 62mph Average Daily Vehicles 315

Arriving motor vehicles from Shepreth towards Meldreth

Evaluation time 09 July 2022 to 26 August 2022 Speed Limit Speed Violations Vehicle Numbers Average Speed Maximum Speed 30 mph 14% 14748 24mph 58mph Average Daily Vehicles 307

high on our list. We do urge residents to report these and other Highway issues using the on-line reporting system and also to note them to our Parish Clerk (links at the end of this report). We believe that there is a direct link between the number of reports received and the urgency that will thereby be attributed by the Highways authority. So please do report these as this will help to resolve the issue faster than might otherwise be the case. With regard to footways (the pedestrian paths alongside highways) we continue to have some issues with a few residents about the need to trim hedges. Thanks go out to all those many residents who have actioned the cutting back of their hedges to their boundary lines. This is greatly appreciated by footway users including the more vulnerable user groups in our community. There is still some work to do, to ensure unencumbered passage along all of our village footways and now that the bird-nesting season has conclusively concluded there is no reason for this work to be deferred. To this end, the Parish Council will monitor the situation through the winter, taking appropriate action where needed to ensure unencumbered access for the benefit of all footway users.

Railway Bridge

The two main issues with the railway bridge concern the pedestrian access over the bridge, the speed of vehicles over the bridge and the behaviour of some users seeking to overtake while crossing the bridge. The width of the footway over the bridge is very restricted; previous research indicated that it would not be structurally possible to widen the footway without a major reconstruction of the bridge, unless the width of the highway was itself reduced. The Group will look at other possibilities that could be discussed with the Highways/Railway authorities such as, for example, the creation of an adjacent footbridge but we imagine that this might be ruled out on grounds of cost. The extension of the footway down to Fieldgate Nurseries is a recurring subject and it may be possible for this to be financed by Section 106 payments that the Council receives from property developments in the village but, again, this seems likely to be a costly proposition. The introduction of a 20mph speed limit accompanied by more effective central white lining over the bridge would help to reduce the risks to pedestrians crossing the bridge and investigating this will be a priority.

Dangerous Junctions

The Group is aware that the crossroads at Fenny Lane/Whitecroft Road and the junction at the War Memorial are viewed as the most dangerous junctions in the village. In both cases the white lining is in very poor condition and seeking restoration of this will be one of the first things the Group will address with the Highways Department. Longer-term measures will remain under discussion.

Conclusions

We hope that this is useful summary of our current work. Please do report Highway faults on the website at https:// highwaysreporting.cambridgeshire.gov.uk and to our Parish Clerk at parishclerk@meldreth-pc.org. More help is needed, so please contact either our Clerk or Councillor Adam Bostanci at adam.bostanci.pc@gmail.com.

Meldreth Traffic Group

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