Cold Ashby Blog/Open Forum
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Why suggested parking restrictions in Cold Ashby's Main Street would not be helpful to residents.
by Ashby Rambler - 17:04 on 16 November 2012
The Rambler was unable to attend the recent Parish Council Meeting but has learnt from the minutes that the Council remain committed to the retention of bollards protecting the footway in Main Street for which the Council deserve parishioners' support and thanks.
Before the installation of these vital safety measures pedestrians were frequently in considerable danger, as cars, overweight HGVs and excessively wide agricultural vehicles mounted the pavement to avoid slowing down to a reasonable speed - usually, though not exclusively, when a traffic queue had formed on the opposite carriageway.
These queues occur when a stream of traffic is waiting to pass a parked vehicle.
In the absence of our long-awaited traffic-calming measures this effectively slows traffic at busy times - but only if vehicles are prevented from mounting the footway by the aforementioned bollards and vehicles are able to park between the junction of Crabtree Lane and the Telephone Box.
Should the Council go ahead with the suggested parking restrictions on this section of Main Street, one of the benefits of retaining the bollards will be removed and traffic will travel unhindered and at speed.
If, as seems likely from my reading of the minutes, the parking restriction is to enable the free passage of wide agricultural traffic without such traffic continuing to damage street furniture and footways, then the Council is not so much 'putting the cart before the horse' as putting the fast passage of noisy, oversized vehicles (HGVs as well as agricultural) before the concerns of Road Safety and the general well-being of Main Street’s residents whilst also supporting the removal of the already inadequate parking for visitors to events in The Village Hall.
As reported, residents of Stanford Road are also badly affected by heavy, wide vehicles. The damage to verges in that road is evidence of the unsuitability of our village roads for many of these vast agricultural machines.
The Rambler knows that agriculture is an essential part of the local (and national) economy and appreciates that the larger machines are deemed necessary to maintain viability in modern farming.
He sincerely hopes that, through the good offices of Cold Ashby Parish Council, these problems may be resolved.
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