WESTBURY councillors are continuing the fight for a resolution to traffic issues causing local concern at the mini-roundabout to the new Spinnaker development and on Station Road.
The council’s highways, planning and development committee chair cllr Mike Sutton reported back from a meeting with his colleagues and Wiltshire Council’s head highways engineer, Kirsty Rose, about the problems of motorists not giving way at the roundabout, and speeding.
Cllr Sutton said the situation would be reviewed in six months, and in a report to the committee, Kirsty Rose advised waiting until the development by Linden Homes with its 90 new properties is completed, to see the impact of the increased traffic.
Members at the HP&D meeting said the current crossing was in the wrong place, too close to the junction, and that visibility for crossing there was poor.
“The highways officer thought there couldn’t be a [new] pedestrian crossing installed there because visibility is not up to legal standard – it’s a catch 22 situation,” cllr Sutton said.
“It’s not a desirable situation and that’s why we wanted it looked at in the first place.
“We have to see how the increased traffic affects it. The zebra crossing there is not desirable – if you move it further down it defeats the object, because the children from the school won’t walk halfway down the road to the zebra crossing, they will just cross in the same place.”
But he assured members, “There’s more to come on this. We’re not going to let it go.”
Kirsty Rose’s report to the committee said, “I believe some of the issue with the roundabout at this time can be attributed to the low numbers of vehicles currently using the new access road.
“As required by planning, the roundabout was provided at the earliest stage of development and has for a considerable time seen very low numbers of vehicles entering or exiting the new road.
“During the initial construction phases, this was construction traffic only. Although the estate is now becoming occupied, numbers are still relatively low. This has unfortunately meant that regular drivers of the route have become accustomed to not having to give-way at the roundabout.
“It is entirely possible that as the volume of traffic entering and leaving the estate increases and drivers become more accustomed to this, that these issues will resolve naturally. As the roundabout is not currently operating at its intended capacity, I suggest we monitor this and should there still be concerns once the development is complete, we then look again at this.”
She added the advance warning signs, roundabout signing and road markings were all in good order. She said it was a possibility a raised central disc could be installed on the mini-roundabout to encourage vehicles to drive around rather than over it ,but while that was in place at the rail station/Primmers Place/Station Road junction mini-roundabout, the Department for Transport does not recommend it for locations where larger vehicles, including buses, would regularly need to drive over the central disc, due to the noise it would cause to residents.
Kirsty Rose added, “With regard to vehicle speeds and volumes in general on Station Road, I recommend the town council request traffic surveys be undertaken to gather data on this. The traffic survey can also identify vehicles by class and give a breakdown of the size of vehicles using Station Road.
“Information from these surveys, even where an overall speeding problem is not identified, can be helpful to the police to allow them to target their enforcement resources at the times of day when regular speeding vehicles are identified.”
She said a request to investigate the potential for a formal pedestrian crossing on Station Road, close to the rail station, could be made via Wiltshire’s community and transport group, but said the siting of a formal crossing was likely to be difficult to achieve due to the numerous accesses, bus stops and constrained footway widths.
The criteria for a signal controlled or zebra crossing is that pedestrian crossing numbers need to be at least 50 per hour, over the four busiest hours of the day.
Cllr Mike Sutton told the committee the police had not logged any accidents there and informed them that Kirsty Rose had said if the crossing was being installed now, it would not have been put so close to the junction.
