Drop-In public consultation session on North Shore, Whitehaven plans at Tescos this afternoon

Residents of Whitehaven and others with an interest in traffic in the town are reminded that the second of two "Drop-in" public consultation sessions on the proposed highway improvements in the North Shore area will be held this afternoon and evening (Monday 23rd April 2018), from 3pm-7pm at the Tesco Superstore, Bransty Row, Whitehaven, CA28 7XY.

Details of the consultation on Cumbria County Council's proposals to improve road safety and traffic flows in the North Shore/Bransty Row area can be found on the council website at


The proposed scheme includes:
  • introduction of traffic light controls on Bransty Row/North Shore Road junction
  • improved pedestrian crossing points and links between the harbour, the new developments and the town centre's historic core
  • enhancement of the road junction at Tangier Street/George Street to improve traffic flow and facilitate development
  • relocation of southbound bus stop on Bransty Row and northbound bus stop to Tangier Street relocation and tripling of provision for taxis to reflect forecast increased footfall in the area
  • reduction of the speed limit from 30mph to 20mph on a section of Bransty Row
  • public realm improvements to enhance the gateway into Whitehaven.

Local residents and anyone with an interest in the proposals are invited to have their say and let  Cumbria County Council know your views.

It is worth adding that there are a number of planned developments in this part of town and it is the opinion of both highway officers and councillors that if those developments go ahead without anything being done to improve this stretch of road, traffic on the key Northern entrance and exit to the centre of Whitehaven will become seriously congested.

There is also a worrying accident rate among road users in this area of the town, particularly for pedestrians, and we want to make the area safer for road users.

I am not going to pretend that I think this scheme is perfect, but it is a considerable improvement on what is there now. The council has to make a decision this year or lose the opportunity to act, because the government has given a substantial but time-limited grant to improve traffic flows and road safety in the area and facilitate economic development. 

Comments

Anonymous said…
"There is also a worrying accident rate among road users in this area of the town, particularly for pedestrians, and we want to make the area safer for road users." - Not for pedestrians then.

There is virtually no consideration of pedestrians.
Access from Bransty, the Station, even Tesco's to the Harbour or town hasn't been considered. Crossing George street or Tangier Street also hasn't been considered.

All that has been considered is vehicular access to and from North Shore Road, and a reduction in pavement space for pedestrians.

It is in essence £2.5 million for a set of traffic lights.

Jim said…
I still maintain, a roundabout at the bottom of bransty, some zebras, and a better junction between tangier and george street would be better, in fact merge the lot, build a roundabout to serve bransty and the traffic exiting tesco, put in some zebras, for pedestrians, then look to build on the bus station site


Chris Whiteside said…
Pedestrians are road users and considerable effort has gone into trying to make it safer to cross the road in the current proposals.

There is a great deal more to this scheme than a set of traffic lights, including widening the road, better sight lines, signal controlled crossing points, moving a bus stop, moving and increasing the number of taxi rank places.

Access from Bransty is now being looked at again in the light of the feedback from the consultation sessions. The other items mentioned in the first post above had indeed all been considered.

Both councillors and members of the public have asked about the possibilities of using roundabouts. The highways planners who drew up the scheme don't think a roundabout can be made to work efficiently with the space available and that it would be hard to combine a roundabout with the measures being included in the current proposals to provide safer crossing points for pedestrians.

If you have views or concerns on the issue please have a look at the proposals, of which the details can be found online at the site linked to in the main post above, and then email your comments or queries about the improvements to: npif@cumbria.gov.uk

or you can feed them in by post to:

David Haughian
Cumbria County Council
Parkhouse Building
The Parkhouse Building
Kingmoor Business Park
Carlisle
CA6 4SJ
Chris Whiteside said…
Intelligent and constructive comments on this blog are always welcome, although childish insults will be deleted.

However, if you want to influence this scheme, feeding your comments in to the officers who are carrying out the current official consultation using the methods described in the main post and the comment immediately above is the best way to do so.

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