Category: Road Safety

Cllr John Taylor has now received a response from Highways, following the recent use of traffic recording (count and speed) strips placed throughout Flockton village, from 16 May 2018.

"The detailed response from Highways about my request, supported by Jacqui Gedman, the Chief Executive and my ward Colleagues for an end to end road safety audit of Barnsley Rd and the reason for the recording strips that were across the road. Rather than summaries I have copied below the entire response."

"We have now received the speed counts back that we did before the half term holidays, which have allowed us to better assess the extents of any speed limit changes for the village. The team have also spent some time walking up and down the village to get a feel for where the issues are, and looked at the casualty information for the full length of the current 30mph section.

All of the 7 traffic counters we placed recorded speeds in both directions, over the full week, and from that we know that the slowest speeds through the village were recorded on either approach to the school , and then gets gradually faster as you travel away. Phill will also send the full summary of results next week, but the average speed across all the counts is around 28mph eastbound and 32mph westbound.

The 2 outer counters, one approaching Haigh Lane (from Grange Moor), the other approaching Hardcastle Lane, from the M1, also classified the vehicles travelling over them, and identified their direction of travel.

From this information we know that average of 419 HGV’s (7.8% of the overall traffic volume) travelled Westbound* towards the M1 (in 24 hrs), in contravention of the existing weight limit order. Whilst some of those may have been legitimately delivering to the village, it is likely that some are not. We will now be sharing the count information with the Police, so they can target enforcement, once they feel confident that the weight limit order is written in a way that allows them to prosecute without challenge. I know Joe Walker has been in touch with you regarding this.

The team have used all this info to score a scheme to reduce the speed limit through the village, against the Policy and the agreed criteria. They will be contacting you with draft proposals for a 20mph speed limit next week, along with the full count summary for each site.

The hope is that you and your ward colleagues will be able to sense check the limits of the proposed 20mph limit, and then advise on the best methods of consultation with the village residents.

The 20mph limit will be supported by a refresh of all the lining, 20mph repeater signs, both on sign posts, but also in roundels on the carriageway, and features on the ground, on approach to the new 20 limit, to slow traffic down.

The Road Safety team will also be contacting the school this month to discuss working with them on a competition to design some road signs to go at the entrance to the 20mph limit, and also on what additional education and training we can do with them, including refreshing their travel plan, and what we can do to help encourage more of their children to walk to school.

If we start the ball rolling with them now, then they have time to plan time for the sign designs to be worked on when the children return to school after the summer.

That will coincide with, hopefully, the completed consultation with the village, the formal advertising of a scheme through Sept, to allow a scheme on the ground in Oct, assuming no objections are received to the formal advertising."

John concludes by saying: "Clearly there is a lot to do and with my ward Colleagues we will work with you on the detail regarding this. As I say, this is hot news, from an email I just received and hopefully we can flesh this out a little at the public meeting [held in the Church, on Friday 15 June at 6:30 pm] and I will share more on here as and when I get more detail."

*Should be Eastbound

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