Wivenhoe
Town Council’s Report July
2006 1. IntroductionThis document provides some background to the Town Council’s involvement in the long process since 2001 when an application for outline planning consent was first presented to Colchester Borough Council for the development of Cook’s Shipyard. It then discusses why this Council is opposed, and has always been opposed to the closure of Queens Road. We also draw attention to an issue with double yellow lines outside the Methodist Church in The Avenue which we believe would be better moved a short distance. 2. Primary ConcernWivenhoe Town Council is concerned that a number of implications of the proposed closure of Queens Road to through traffic have not been properly considered and that the due processes of consultation and assessment have not been carried out. This could result in unintended consequences for other highways and junctions which have not been thought through. When CBC Planning Committee gave outline planning consent
for the development of Cook’s Shipyard, it agreed:
Work at the junction of Queens Road and Valley Road to
encourage/force vehicular traffic to use the Valley Road route in lieu of
Queens Road/Park Road or Queens Road/High Street. Nb. Depending on details
this may include other calming devices in Queens Road. One of the unintended consequences of closing Queens Road will be for the new Cook’s traffic to use the East Street / Brook Street route, in preference to the Valley Road route, totally contrary to the Planning Committee’s decision. In the Planning Committee’s decision, there is no reference to closure of Queens Road. 3. BackgroundSince 2001, Wivenhoe Town Council has taken a leading role concerning many issues regarding this sensitive site. It has worked closely with CBC’s Planning Department. It also worked closely with seven organisations in Wivenhoe on Cook’s related issues, following the outline consent granted in February 2002. With CBC Planning, it was an active party in the negotiation of the Section 106 agreement that was eventually signed in November 2004. Concerning highway matters specifically, in the absence of any prior consultation with residents in lower Wivenhoe, in 2002, the Town Council organised a two-week exhibition of highway plans in the Town Council offices to let people know what changes would be happening and, in the case of Queens Road, what options there were. Around 200 people visited this exhibition and about 50 people completed comment forms that we passed to what was then CBC Highways Department. The Town Council concluded its work on Section 106 matters by publication of a report in September 2002. This was made available to residents on the Town Council’s website. Having listened to the legitimate concerns of all residents in all affected roads, the Town Council concluded that Queens Road should remain open but that special measures should be taken to restrict the speed of traffic through it, as had been offered as an option by CBC Highways. In December 2002, we were asked if we would agree to CBC’s Portfolio Holder having the final say on which option. We agreed to this option understanding there would be a final consultation, possibly involving the Section 106 agreement being considered by Planning Committee. In March 2005, a report was written by Highways and presented to the Portfolio Holder recommending closure of Queens Road. This appeared to be done in haste, since the CBC’s highways agency responsibilities were being passed to ECC on 1st April. The Town Council never saw the report nor the questionnaires used by Highways that went to residents in only a limited number of roads and not to everyone who could be affected by the closure of Queens Road. Our view throughout this period has remained constant: we believe closing Queens Road would increase the traffic burden unfairly on the other two routes, with consequences for highway safety and traffic management issues. 4. Section 278 NoticeRather than relying on standard A4-sized statutory notices applied to lamp-posts by ECC Highways, and a formal notice in the back pages in the local newspaper to inform all potentially affected residents, Wivenhoe Town Council has delivered 400 letters to ensure people are better informed. Concerning the closure of Queens Road, we felt the wording of the notice needed to be clarified for ordinary people to better understand, as the relevant part of notice said: The
Essex County Council (Queen’s Road, Wivenhoe) (Prohibition of Driving)
Order 2006 EFFECT OF THE ORDER to prohibit all motor vehicles other than emergency vehicles from driving in the following length of road: Queen’s Road, Wivenhoe From its junction with Valley Road west for 5m 5. Queens Road
It is obviously a narrow street made very constricted by the number of cars parked along most of its length.
At some point Queens Road became signposted as the main route to the Business Centre to avoid commercial vehicles using narrow streets in the heart of the Wivenhoe’s Conservation area. Many of the residents of Queens Road have expressed their concerns to us about traffic, and lorries in particular, using their road, the speed of vehicles and highway safety in general in that road. The Town Council recognises all these issues. It also recognises that at least the majority of residents, and probably all those living in the central part of the street, would like to see it closed to through traffic. We can understand why this should be the case. On a recent walk around the affected roads with Vicky Presland and Paul Bradford from ECC Highways, town councillors were told the preferred option to close Queens Road at its junction at Valley Road was because of the narrowness of the highway due to parked cars, lack of footway on one side and narrowness of the footway on the other side. Clearly the residents of Queens Road from Valley Road to the High Street will benefit from no longer having existing through traffic as well as none of the additional traffic arising from the development of Cook’s. 6. Map of the area
The preferred route of ECC Highways for vehicles coming from the area of Cook’s Shipyard is: Anglesea Road, left into Queens Road, right into Valley Road, watch out for traffic coming down the steepest hill in Wivenhoe, The Dale, pause at the junction with Bobbits Way as Bobbits Way traffic has priority (although road markings indicating this have long since worn away and need to be restored); give way at the junction with Park Road; give way at the junction with Belle Vue Road; give way at the junction with High Street and The Avenue. Avoid positioning the vehicle on the zebra crossing before crossing the junction. Alternatively, drive from Anglesea Road down Queens Road, possibly having to stop in one of the passing bays to allow an on-coming car through, before proceeding to the junction with the High Street. There are good sightlines up and down the High Street. 7. Issues regarding the closure of Queens Road7.1 When the outline planning consent was considered by CBC Planning Committee in February 2002, it was on the basis that there would be three access roads to handle extra traffic in Wivenhoe's narrow streets (although it was agreed by the Committee that Belle Vue Road, Park Road, Valley Road would be the main route). The Highways proposal to close Queens Road was made after questionnaires had been delivered to residents in immediately affected roads without any covering information to allow residents a proper opportunity to consider all the implications. The resulting report was never made public. 7.2 In 2001, consultants Intermodal Transportation conducted a traffic impact assessment on the basis of three routes. The conclusions of this assessment showed the existing traffic and potential new volumes (adjusted for a revised number of homes rather than impact from a possible 120 homes considered by Intermodal):
Notes: 1.
It is not understood why there appears to be a greater
increase in Queens Road peak hour traffic than in Anglesea Road consequent
to the development of Cook’s Shipyard. 2.
Neither is it understood why the increase in traffic
is estimated at 86 vehicles in a peak hour, the same number of homes
presently projected at Cook’s. 7.3 Whilst some of the 56 peak hour vehicles presently using Queens Road belong to Queens Road residents (excluding those who live at the Anglesea Road end), a high percentage of these existing peak hour vehicles will have to use the Valley Road route in future.
7.5 The 2001 traffic assessment study never considered the risks of bringing extra traffic onto Belle Vue Road from Park Road, nor the implications of much higher levels of traffic along East Street / Brook Street. 7.6 We consider it a major omission that a traffic impact assessment has never been carried out by Highways Dept into the consequences of bringing so much extra traffic onto Belle Vue Road. We know from anecdotal evidence that these are both dangerous junctions with many near misses. 7.7 Apart from a lack of consideration of traffic coming onto Belle Vue Road, we believe the danger will be far greater when traffic is returning at the late afternoon peak. This is when traffic needs to turn right into Park Road from Belle Vue Road across the face of oncoming traffic, including buses, coming round a bend. There is potential for a very difficult situation if cars back up from the High Street / The Avenue junction with nowhere for vehicles to go. We suggest Highways need to satisfy us this is not something to worry about. 7.8 A further danger then occurs at the awkward 5-point junction with Belle Vue Road, High Street, The Avenue, Ernest Road and De Vere Lane. 7.9 The Town Council has never seen any sort of assessment that an increase in the number of cars, not just from the Cooks development, will bring but also from other traffic that currently uses Queens Road as an access point to the spinal route of High Street and The Avenue. 7.10 Whilst there will be an increase in traffic from Cook’s, these new traffic arrangements will undoubtedly inconvenience existing residents and make their journeys more dangerous to and from Wivenhoe’s spinal route. 7.11 In 2002 we remember very well a highways officer telling us there were no reported traffic accidents in any of the access roads. 7.12 Our own public consultation in the summer of 2004 revealed public concern about children using estate roads to go to school and to play in. We have never seen a report from Highways taking this into consideration when advocating Cook’s traffic should be prioritised through the estate roads. Parking Issues 7.13 Valley Road parking: It was noted in 2002 that many residents were “forced” to park on the highway by the steep incline of their driveways and that this created a chicane effect in the part of Valley Road closest to Queens Road. Since then, in line with national year on year increases in the number of cars registered, the number of cars in Valley Road has also increased substantially and in the last couple of years it has become the practice to park cars on both sides with at least two wheels on the pavement, causing obstructions to larger vehicles especially. 7.14 We know that parked cars in part of Valley Road means construction vehicles going to Cook's are unable to get through there until after 9am. Highways Dept seem to be ignoring this issue in their present proposals by only proposing a short stretch of double yellow lines. Clearly to apply double yellow lines down one side of Valley Road, in order to ensure a clear thoroughfare, will inconvenience a number of residents. Failure to prevent cars parking on both sides of the road will make the road impassable to larger vehicles from time to time, leading to a traffic jam with no alternative route.
7.15 Whilst parking in Queens Road constricts the highway width to a single lane for a majority of its length, motorists can see whether they have a clear run or not, and Highways caused a passing bay to be installed several years back. 7.16 Blocking Queens Road at its junction with Valley Road would prevent through traffic but if, for example, a large vehicle does need access to property in the dip part of Queens Road, as the dustcart or delivery van for example, residents in Paget Road may find themselves having to wait for their only exit to become clear. This is in stark contrast with their present situation with two exits. 7.17 It has been clear to the Town Council from the outset that residents of Queens Road were extremely concerned about increased traffic volumes in their road, for obvious and understandable reasons. The issues raised at the time of our public consultation concerned speed of vehicles, size of vehicles and pedestrian safety. These were exactly the same issues raised by residents in other access roads. Whilst the pavement in Queens Road may be narrow, East St / Brook Street residents have no pavement at all, so this is no justification to close Queens Road. 7.18 We have been warned that Taylor Woodrow wants to revise the final phase of the scheme and build more smaller houses in place of several larger houses. So Wivenhoe's narrow roads will be facing a further increase in traffic, albeit not significantly higher, but this was not taken into consideration in the outline consent of February 2002, nor when the S106 agreement was signed in 2004. 7.19 Occasional flooding has occurred at the bottom of both Queens Road and Valley Road at times of very heavy rain, causing the highway to be impassable for short periods. Other reasons, such as badly parked vehicles, can also cause obstructions and for these reasons the Town Council has always advocated there should be alternative access roads. 7.20 Heavy lorries down Park Road. Several residents of Queens Road have particular concerns about large vehicles using their road, and understandably too. There is a particular issue for the residents who live close the junction with Park Road when lorries occasionally come down Park Road and need to turn right or left when they reach Queens Road. There is no obvious reason why large lorries over the years have come down Park Road but we have received complaints from residents from time to time. Obviously if Queens Road is closed, such
vehicles won’t be able to turn left at the Queens Road but there will be
nothing in the future to prevent them coming down Park Road.
Obviously if their intent is to get to Cook’s Shipyard, they will
turn left at the Valley Road junction, but these lorries in the past have
not been going there. 7.21 We are also concerned that large vehicles will continue down High Street, turn left into Queens Road and then be confronted by a “No through road” sign and try to turn left into Park Road, which is an impossible manoeuvre for a HGV. 7.22 The sign in the High Street directing traffic, some of which is HGVs, down Queens Road to the Wivenhoe Business Centre, needs to be removed whatever decision is taken. 7.23 We are concerned about the plethora of highway signs that will be directed down this complicated route, starting with The Avenue and then Belle Vue Road / Park Road / Valley Road / Queens Road / Anglesea Road / Brook Street. This is a complicated route for drivers not familiar with it. Signs will need to reference more than just access Cook’s Shipyard, but other locations as well, since any vehicle, car or commercial vehicle, missing the Belle Vue Road junction, will either turn into Queens Road to find it blocked or will have to pass the church and go via East Street and Brook Street to roads at the back of the Valley estate, Anglesea Road and even Dene Park as in the future there will only be two access roads to the whole of this area under this proposal. 7.24 How large will these signs have to be to ensure drivers know where to go, and not just to Cook’s, if they are to avoid ending up down by the church wondering whether to turn left, or double back. And not just the one at the end of The Avenue, but the signs at the other junctions. 8. Double yellow lines in The AvenueIt has been brought to our notice that the double yellow lines in The Avenue outside the Methodist Church would cause a great deal of inconvenience to users of that church. Parents drop off and pick up children for the playgroup there and many elderly church members are similarly brought to the door. It seems to us that the precise location of this “passing bay” is not critical and we recommend that it be located a few yards further north. 9. ConclusionThe Town Council's primary concern throughout has been highway safety translating into safety of pedestrians, cyclists and motorists. We have not seen any assessment of the impact of the closure of Queens Road on highway safety on other roads. We feel this is major omission and strongly urge that such an assessment be carried out. Closure of Queens Road will improve matters for Queens Road residents enormously but at the expense of residents in other access roads (Brook Street, Valley Road etc) and by those who presently already use Queens Road as an access road to get to the High Street. Outline
planning consent for the development of Cook’s was given on the basis of
three access roads; the minutes of the meeting show nothing about Queens
Road being closed but quite the opposite.
In
order to avoid this delaying Cook’s development (under the S106
agreement the developer is not allowed to let any houses be occupied until
highway works are completed) a variance should be made in the terms of the
agreement to allow for a delay in the Queens Road order whilst Highways
conduct a traffic impact assessment. The Town Council’s has remained in opposition to the
closure of Queens Road for traffic since it conducted its public
consultation with many local residents in 2002.
It does believe construction traffic should stick to the route
agreed with Taylor Woodrow via Bowes Road, Bobbits Way, and then into
Valley Road. This
construction traffic is a temporary hazard and nuisance, and not a reason
to close Queens Road permanently. Keep Queens Road open to cars but
closed to construction traffic APPENDIX A.
Extract from Wivenhoe Town Council’s Section 106 report on
Cook’s Shipyard, September 2002, concerning Queens Road and Valley Road
In April, at our request, Highways
Officer Richard Martin led us around the access roads to understand his
list of proposals that were approved by CBC Planning Committee in March
(see Appendix). Some modifications proposed before detailed highway
drawings commissioned from Lexden Restorations. Two week public consultation period
organised by WP end July / early August on highway plans. WP wrote to all
householders in 10 affected roads inviting residents to review plans in
WTC offices and offer comments (some 50 comment forms completed) which
have been considered and noted by the WP. Section 3 - Queens Road and Valley
Road Queens Road.
The residents of Queens Road almost all expressed a preference for
the closure of Queens Road at its junction with Valley Road (Option 1).
Their reasoning for this is that traffic (car and motor-bike) is inclined
to travel too fast down the hill. More traffic would impair road safety
for road users and pedestrians on this narrow street. Valley Road.
The residents of Valley Road are now aware that potential closure of
Queens Road means all traffic exiting Cook’s via Anglesea Road will come
past their front doors (CBC Planning Committee agreed this recommendation
in March). It is pointed out
that many residents are forced to keep their cars on the highway due to
the steep nature of the drive-ways in part of the road closest to Angelsea
Road, thereby creating a chicane effect through them and a single traffic
flow. Also, this road is used by many school-children as a route to
Millfields School and that Valley Road can occasionally flood for short
periods, close to Sandford Close, after periods of intense rain, requiring
an alternative route to Anglesea Road.
For these reasons, the residents of Valley Road are opposed to
Queens Road Option 1. Recommendation: The preference
of the Working Party is for Option 2 (i and ii) that creates
traffic-calming speed tables and improved pedestrian safety measures at
the junctions of Queens Road with Park Road (2i) and also before its
junction with Valley Road. This will have the effect of sharing traffic
using the Anglesea Road route between Queens Road and Valley Road, giving
an alternative to drivers in the event one or other of the roads is
blocked for whatever reason. The speed tables at two points on Queens Road
should address the legitimate concerns of residents about existing traffic
speeds as well as those arising from increased traffic volumes.
B Copy of the Second
Schedule of the Section 106 Draft (Jan 2002) THE SECOND SCHEDULE Short Particulars of the Off-Site Highway Works The Off-Site Highway Works shall consist of the works
set out at Part A of this Schedule and those works set out at Part B of
this Schedule as may be notified to the Owner (or the Developer) before
the Completion of the Off-Site Highway Works Agreement Part A 1.
The changing of road priority at the Station Road
junction with High Street including a speed table extending across the
junction with Alma Street 2.
The provision of an altered kerb alignment and
footway surface on Anchor Hill close to its junction with East Street,
including accommodating the access to existing properties, so as to
improve the safety of the junction 3.
The provision of two footway build-outs on East
Street in the vicinity of ‘Eastcote’ and number 2 East Street to
reduce speeds on this narrow, straight road 4.
The provision of a
mountable build-out adjacent to Alice’s Cottage Brook Street and of a
non-mountable build-out adjacent to number 4 Brook Street 5.
The provision of a footway build-out on Brook
Street adjacent to St John’s Road together with all works necessary
within the existing highway to complete the highway square that forms the
entrance to the Development 6.
The provision of a small number of short lengths of
restricted parking areas on The Avenue to allow more efficient shuffle
working of traffic
Part B
7.
The extension of the junction protection waiting
restrictions on Park Road and High Street where they meet Belle Vue Road
so as to improve visibility for drivers 8.
The provision of signage on the spine route to
direct larger vehicles to the Site via the Belle Vue Road/Valley Road
route 9.
The provision of a clean, stable, free-draining
surface (in keeping with the existing appearance and suitable for
cyclists) over the Folly and the Quay between the Site and Bethany Street 10. The provision of all of the works necessary for one of the following traffic management schemes on Queens Road: (a)
The closure to motor vehicles of Queens Road where it meets Valley
Road by means of a kerbed footway surface and suitable barriers, or (b) Traffic calming by means of a raised table at the junction with Park Road and a raised table near to the junction with Valley Road, or (c)
The traffic calming measures referred to at 10(b) above in
conjunction with a one way traffic scheme east to west all
of
which Off-Site Highway Works are to be: (a) designed to a specification approved by the County
(or the Council as its agent) and to include any necessary alterations to
and reinstatements of existing highways and statutory undertakers
equipment the provision of street lighting road signs drainage related
accommodation and any other works normally associated with the
construction of a highway or reasonably required by the County (or the
Council as its agent) (b) subject to a stage 2 safety audit by an
independent safety auditor (c) generally in
accordance with the details shown on drawings IT154/OS/01A, 02A, 03A and
05A (attached to this Agreement) which have been subject to a stage 1
safety audit |
The
Town Council has long been aware of the issues in Queens Road. Whilst
historically it was the main route to Cook’s Shipyard, very large
lorries came via Valley Road and kerbs on the corners were repaired
afterwards. The steepness of Queens Road was also an issue in icy weather.
It
is used as a main artery to the High Street for traffic from the south end
of the Valley estate and from the Anglesea Road area. 
7.4
