Essex Transport Strategy Consultation - Essex County Council
Essex County Council have started a consultation on a new Transport Strategy (more info here https://consultations.essex.gov.uk/essex-highways/essex-transport-strategy/ ).
Aldham Parish Council responded to this consultation and a copy of that response follows:-
Essex Draft Transport Strategy Consultation, September 2024
Comments by Aldham Parish Council:
The Strategy is highly theoretical and offers no practical measures. It includes no proper analysis of existing transport issues across the County to inform what the Strategy should be seeking to address to meet the needs of the County’s residents and businesses. There are no clear objectives or targets against which the success of the Strategy can be judged and the outcomes listed under the three Themes and Outcomes/Activities are too vague and include no base line against which to measure progress.
What is the Strategy saying about how it is reducing the need to travel by car to reduce congestion and delay, and how can the County Council influence this given limited powers and resources?
In terms of the highway network there is no reference to the fact that apart from the Essex section of the M25 there are only four strategic routes in the County (A12, A120 , A13, A127 and A130) and three of these are the responsibility of National Highways not the County Council. What impact will the new Thames Crossing have on travel in South Essex? What will be the impact of a six lane motorway standard link between Marks Tey and Boreham on North Essex, and what is the plan for the A120 east of Braintree given it appears unlikely to appear in the Government’s next Roads Investments Strategy (RIS3)? What is the transport strategy for future growth in the County, particularly at Chelmsford and how can the new station at Beaulieu assist with a modal shift.
To promote a new Strategy for Essex that fails to address the current and future highway network issues will not deliver outcomes that are beneficial to residents or businesses.
From a local point of view as a small village impacted by high volumes of traffic using country lanes to avoid congestion on major routes, this strategy offers no assistance. The definitions for ’local roads’ and ‘lanes’ in the Place & Movement Classification highlight the problem. The Classification fails to acknowledge that country lanes are places where people live, in hamlets and small villages, and that Google Maps does not distinguish between ‘local roads’ and ‘lanes’ when re-routing traffic to avoid congestion on the inadequate main highway network. Furthermore, the use of SatNav has resulted in all road users being able to rat run through minor roads which still have no restrictions apart from the National Speed Limit.
The Strategy needs to recognise that the level of through traffic using inappropriate narrow lanes and village streets is becoming intolerable for those that live along them and a clear plan is required to mitigate this impact. A key objective of the Strategy should be to set out criteria, based on traffic speed and volumes, backed up if necessary by origin/destination data, to help identify those local roads and lanes that are effectively now part of the strategic network and no longer just serving those who live and work along it. Where the criteria are met the policy should be to introduce measures to reduce traffic speeds and volumes along these routes by the use of village gateways with road narrowing or chicanes, permanent speed watch signage and regular policing. In particular there should be an explicit acceptance that where the criteria are met the County and Police will support the use of reduced speed limits, especially where there are roads with high volumes and speeds that are too narrow to have white lines.
The failure of the Strategy to acknowledge the scale of the problem we have with traffic levels in the County today will result in this document being no more than an academic exercise that will not improve conditions for travellers, residents or businesses in the County.