Please see below for Keswick & Intwood Parish Council’s response to the recent consultation regarding Keswick, C184 Low Road – traffic calming measures Traffic Regulation Order:
On behalf of Keswick and Intwood I would like to thank you for providing the Low Road traffic proposals.
Our comments are as follows;
We asked for an extension of time to consider this proposal as this is the first time the Parish Council has actually seen it. It has not been endorsed or approved by the Parish Council at all.
We were provided with a draft plan last year and on the 10 August 2022 some members of the Parish Council had a walk through of Low Road with Jonathan Cage of Create consultancy. Various issues were pointed out to him including visability between build outs and the painted line pavement which we certainly did not agree to. We have been ignored.
Since that time the Parish Clerk has written to Create to ask for updates for our Parish Council meetings but none have been forthcoming and the emails not even acknowledged.
We have asked for meetings with Highways Dept but have been told to liaise with Create which is impossible when we have been basically ghosted.
As a parish Council we cannot accept these proposals . The developer, Apex, promised to give us a road with traffic calming measures and a safe footpath for pedestrians in order to help gain their planning permission but this plan does not fulfil that promise. We certainly have some major concerns:-
- The road between the Reading Room and the junction with Mill Lane is very narrow and the proposed buildout at the Keswick Old Hall wall does not have good visibility. At the moment a vehicle has to manoeuver to practically the middle of the road by the wall before they can see if any traffic is approaching from the Mill Lane direction. The proposed buildout positioning makes this even worse.
- This will, in turn, impact on the proposed painted footpath between Keswick Old Hall wall and junction with Mill Lane The actual road is not wide enough to accommodate a footpath, cyclists , horses, farm tractors and other vehicles. There will be occasions when pedestrians on the painted footpath will find themselves at the mercy of 2 vehicles approaching them from different directions. How can this be regarded as safe? With the increase usage of vehicles in general and electric cars this would make using the footpath dangerous as pedestrians would not even hear some of the traffic approaching from behind them. This was actually pointed out to Jonathan Cage of Create Consultancy on the walkthrough over a year ago but seems to have been completely ignored by him in their final proposed plans. The lack of consultation from Create Consultancy and also the developer has been very frustrating.
Following on from one of our requests to Highways ,some members of the Parish Council had a very informative and much appreciated walk through Low Road with Adam Mayo from NCC Highways Dept and he agreed that the road was not suitable for this painted footpath as the road was too narrow.
We were not even aware that a safety audit had been carried out by the Highways Dept until advised by our County Councillor and a copy provided by him which makes interesting reading.
It would seem that the NCC Stage 2 Safety report for Keswick Low Road (stage 2 safety audit Jan 2022) also had some concerns regarding the the section between Keswick Reading Room and Keswick Old Hall ( section 2) stating that there was an issue with alignment and the problem being a head-on collision. this is then followed by section 4 which covers the road from Keswick Old Hall to Mill Lane junction concerning conflict with pedestrians which mentions pedestrians might be hit with wing mirrors from vehicles but does not adequately suggest an alternative but merely suggests an implied footpath is still ok.
- The Parish Council has also asked for speed bumps not cushions and would like to know why this has been changed. Speed bumps are easier for cyclists to negotiate and cushions are very easy for traffic to straddle and not slow down.
- Is there any way to reduce the amount of street furniture. We are obviously aware that signs have to be provided but is there any way of limiting them.
- We have also been asked if there can be an additional speed bump in the area between Fir Hill and the bend before Christmas Cottage. A car drove straight through their hedge when driver misjudged the bend in the road.
- We specifically would like to see an up to date traffic survey of Low road as traffic has already increased significantly since the increase in housing approved by SNDC in Cringleford.
- We would also ask to see the results of your projections in both traffic levels and pollution levels to Low Road to see if it is actually capable of taking a big increase in traffic volume.
We are a small Parish with a £6000 precept so cannot afford to employ Highways engineers to act on our behalf. We had hoped that the Highways dept would help guide us through any alternatives to keep Low Road a safe road for our residents. Your department has the expertise, the developer has expertise but we don’t .We feel at a huge disadvantage and are being penalised when we did not want the Industrial Site in the first place.
The big question is :- What would an NCC Highways Engineer recommend and design for Low Road if given that brief. We want to make the road safe for our residents as it is already a dangerous stretch of road between Keswick Old Hall wall and the junction with Mill Lane.
This version of Low Road neither meets our requirements nor gives safety to our residents where the road is at its narrowest.
As a Parish Council we are now require a meeting sometime in October with the Highways Dept, when summer holidays are over, to talk through our concerns. Where there are alternatives we need to be made aware of them rather than having to settle for a cheap painted pavement and kept in the dark by the developer.
Jan Hill
Chair of Keswick and Intwood Parish Council
