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20s plenty City Council County Council COVID19 Cycling Walking Winchester

COVID-19 and our local streets

I’ve been thinking a lot about the challenges and opportunities that COVID-19 offers to the way we use our streets and roads here in Winchester.

The lower level of traffic is causing some immediate problems, such as increased speeding; revealing other problems, particularly in places where our pavements are too narrow for the number of people who want to use them; and also showing great opportunities, with a big increase in walking and cycling, particularly on our rural roads.

As we move into the recovery phase, we also need to do more to make our centres “social distancing” friendly. This means wider pavements and, learning from other countries, more opportunities for businesses to have widely spaced outdoor seating areas. People need to feel confident and safe coming back to our towns and villages knowing that they can easily move around in a socially distanced way.

What sort of measures would this give us?

  • We need to tackle the heavily walked and queuing areas where the pavements are too narrow and the roads are too wide. An obvious place to start is the one-way system. I’d like to see if we could cone the whole one-way system down to a single lane with the rest reserved for walkers and cyclists – single lane in North Walls – single lane in St George’s St – narrowed single lane in Jewry St – narrowed single lane in the upper section of the High Street. If possible, we also need to do something for pedestrians on City Bridge and Romsey Road bridge too (although given both are heavily used by buses, this will be harder).
  • We need to cut cars and lock in the change on roads where we have seen a dramatic increase in leisure usage. In my own area the road where this is most visible is Sarum Road. I’m sure there are plenty more. As a minimum, we need signage which shows that this is a road where cars drivers are not the priority users and should expect heavy foot and cycle usage.
  • On speed, we need to finish the job in Winchester and extend the 20 mph zone to residential areas across the whole city. We also need to narrow roads and widen pavements or add cycle lanes where there is a particular risk of people driving too fast. I would love to see up an uphill cycle lane on Chilbolton Avenue, for example.
  • We need to create space for businesses to use the highway for widely spaced outdoor seating. The most obvious option to do this is to fully pedestrianise the Square. We may need a couple of blue badge parking spots for people who need parking near the centre, but we should definitely stop through traffic.
  • Finally, one minor irritant that I know concerns some people. We need to revisit our push button crossings. Can we make them sensor or timer driven – so we don’t all need to push the button?

Make sense? Any streets, roads or priorities I’ve missed?

One of my responsibilities at the council is the City of Winchester Movement Strategy, so I’m already talking a lot with council officers and engineers at the City Council and County Council about how we can improve our streets. I promise to pass on any ideas that people send through!

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20s plenty Stanmore Winchester

Will 20 mph be enforced in Winchester? Here’s the answer…

Following a recent report in the Hampshire Chronicle, there’s been quite a bit of confusion about whether 20 mph will be enforced in Winchester or not.

In order to sort this out, I wrote to the Police Commissioner and the Chief Constable – and now I have their answers.

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20s plenty Walking Winchester

Local enthusiasm and a flood of ideas to sort out walking in Winchester

One of the things I’m most keen to do as a Councillor is encourage and support walking in Winchester.

Martin Tod, Phryn Dickens and Rose Prowse standing on Battery Hill with 20 mph signsI’ve been a campaigner for 20 mph zones for years. Since election to the County Council, I’ve successfully pushed to get pro-walking schemes on the development programme for Romsey Road and Stockbridge Road (and, yes, I’ve asked that these should include improved crossings at Boscobel Road and Clifton Terrace/St James’ Terrace). And my work with the Men’s Health Forum has made me only too well aware of the health benefits of walking. Read the excellent Walking Works report by Public Health England, the Ramblers and Macmillan Cancer Support if you want to know more about walking and health.

One of the other initiatives that I’m involved with is the Winchester Walking Strategy Group – chaired by my council colleague Robert Hutchison – and with the expert input and advice of Liz Kessler. And it was during one of these meetings that I thought I’d tweet and Facebook a question to see what local social media users might have to say about walking in Winchester.

And I was pleasantly surprised by the response:

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20s plenty Environment Speeding Winchester

Best place to live in England

I’ve just watched the ‘Location, Location, Location’ programme about the ten best places to live in Britain – and Winchester has dropped to number two behind Edinburgh.

However, we’re still the best place to live in England so I guess we shouldn’t feel too down!

I watched the show and we lost points for our carbon emissions and our road safety – two areas we’ve been campaigning on for quite some time.

Aside from our national commitments to a zero carbon Britain, I’ve already offered my time to Winchester Action on Climate Change and will be continuing with our campaign for proper 20 mph speed limits outside schools and in residential areas that want them.

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20s plenty Speeding

Speed limits not spin

I must confess to being pretty baffled by the Conservatives’ latest plans to try and slow down traffic outside schools.

They’ve now issued application packs to local schools in which they ask schools to pay for, or spend time raising sponsorship money for, ‘advisory’ 20 mph signs featuring a cartoon snail, rather than a speed limit warning, outside schools

Everyone I’ve spoken too about having a 20 mph speed outside schools wants an enforceable limit, not a cartoon snail. And they certainly don’t want the money to pay for them to be taken from schools when it could be spent on education.

These signs should be properly funded from the roads budget. And they should be designed to get the message across to drivers, not to appeal to children.

Southampton City Council is already imposing 20mph limits outside all schools and Portsmouth City Council’s scheme will do the same on most residential roads.

A recent Audit Commission report shows that Britain’s roads are among the safest in the world for adults – but not for children. A child pedestrian in England is three times more likely to die on our roads than in Italy and twice as likely as in France.

You can read the Echo report here.