onionbagblog

To the Town Council Offices! …on a blustery mid-winter Tuesday evening. The quarterly Neighbourhood Action Panel was meeting in the chamber. It wasn’t quite car crash viewing, but very informative, illuminating and *shhh* slightly inspiring.

Put your foot down now if Speed Watch isn’t your type of thing…

Essex County Councillor Julie Young addressed the Panel about the recent Community Day of Action in Wivenhoe:

“Almost 50% of the concerns that we had from residents were related to parking problems. Now that this priority has been identified, Colchester Borough Council is working out what can be done over the next three months.”

Cllr Young then shared a list of five other concerns that had cropped up after the lengthy consultation taken by CBC. These included:

1. Overgrowing hedges and trees at Park Road

2. The visibility of the zebra crossing at The Avenue

3. White lines along Clingoe Hill by the traffic lights not being visible [although slightly out of the hyperlocal Wivenhoe patch]

4. Anti-social behavior in the Rosabelle Avenue approach to the Wivenhoe Wood picnic area and

5. A lack of signs towards the bottom of the High Street, warning HGV’s to stay away.

Welcome to Wivenhoe, etc…

Cllr Young recognised though that parking and speeding are both priorities; both are also dependent on the zero funding that is available to introduce ways in which to reduce these within Wivenhoe.

A Park Road resident [for the record, *not* a hyperlocal blogger...] then addressed the NAP:

“The residents of Denton Terrace and Colne Terrace between them pay tens of thousands of pounds to Colchester Borough Council, yet they have nowhere to park. The collective land that these residents have is but a tenth of one plot of land for a single house opposite along Park Road.”

The point was well made, but I’m not sure if it was a good one. It took the chair of Wiv Soc to point out:

“If folk want to buy a Victorian terrace house then they shouldn’t really expect to have two parking spaces. Double yellow lines are needed all the way down Park Road.”

@SgtLouMiddleton added:

“Until we have less cars, the problem won’t go away.”

The ‘problem’ being that residents of Denton and Colne Terrace park their cars along, um, Park Road – where residents also pay Council Tax to Colchester Borough Council.

It’s not exactly a chicken and an egg situation – Victorian period piece property simply wasn’t designed for two cars to be parked up alongside the pony trap.

The Chair of the NAP clarified that Park Road residents have been consulted previously about introducing a parking zone for the area. This was refused.

The conversation reached something of a roadblock…

No worries. What we need now is a community spirited volunteer led scheme to shine some light on all things transport related in Wivenhoe; what we need is Speed Watch.

Oh Lordy…

The Chair noted that the previous NAP had held some “considerable discussion” about Speed Watch at the last meeting. Following on from this and one of the fine volunteers had been invited to address the meeting.

Speed Watch is essentially a volunteer led initiative where local residents check the speed of passing traffic in their community. They are fully trained in both the technology and the safety to carry out their duties. Data is passed on to Essex Police. Persistent offenders then receive a polite letter, possibly leading to three points on the licence.

The Wivenhoe Speed Watch volunteer explained how:

“Seven of us are currently trained to take part in the scheme. Three of us are actively operative. Broad Lane has been the main area of our work to date. We are also working around The Avenue. Rectory Road and Elmstead Road are also areas of concern. We have caught motorists speeding in both directions – that is going out of Wivenhoe as well as coming in.

Our main concern is that we urgently need more volunteers. We work for around an hour each morning from 7:30 onwards. This is to catch the commuters and traffic on the school run.”

@SgtLouMiddleton then fully endorsed the scheme – as did the rest of the folk sitting around the NAP table:

“Between August and October of this year, just under 3,000 letters have been sent out by Essex Police as a consequence of the Speed Watch scheme. Sixty-five drivers have been sent on a speed awareness course. Speed Watch is incredibly effective. We need to encourage as many volunteers as possible – this is a key problem for our community.”

The NAP Speed Watch volunteer then added that:

“Motorists are actually very supportive of us. We are always thanked for having a presence each morning.”

The concern in Wivenhoe is that unless more Speed Watch volunteers step forward, it will become tricky for @SgtLouMiddleton to justify keeping all the tech gear within our hyperlocal patch.

The agenda then made a rare diversion away from all things car related, with a discussion about the proposed youth facilities around Broadfileds. The September re-launch of the Broadfields Residents Association was deemed a “partial success” [I thought that it was rather ace...]

The problem of course is… funding. The equipment to place around Henrietta Close comes at a steep cost – around £100,000.

OUCH.

We heard how for funding to be applied for, BRA [yeah, yeah] needs to become established and constituted. To achieve this, it needs more… support. No cheap chicken and egg references to be made here.

Any Other Business saw an evening all, and a return to… transport matters.

Oh Lordy.

We were joined midway through the meeting by two representatives from the Safer Colchester Partnership. This is a CBC initiative that is sending a police flying squad to come in and squat some parts of the town. It all sounds very Sweeny-esque, but is actually incredibly community orientated.

Did someone mention the S word?

Speed Watch has been implemented by the Partnership, working in… partnership with some of the children from Broomgrove. We heard how twenty-five hours have been put in place by the police and pupils, with so far forty-five speeding motorists stopped.

It turns out that a good ticking off by the ankle biters actually has more of an effect that the police laying their size 10′s in, so to speak. This work will continue until the end of February. Locations were mentioned, but to repeat them would be, well, giving the game away.

Finally the NAP came to a close with the good news story that the Safer Colchester Partnership is putting in place a regular Friday night football session for Wivenhoe yoof at the Philip Road Centre. These will kick off [geddin] on 6th January, starting at 7pm. All young folk are welcome.

And so no U-turns, emergency stops or even skid marks.

The next NAP will meet on 13th March. All are welcome…