Richard Winter
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Traffic 'Sign posts to 2010' - 2006/07/13 13:33
The Lewes Matters infrastructure team have spent the last 6 months gathering data on traffic related issues to formulate a response to the proposed ‘Phoenix’ development that many Lewes people feel is ignoring earlier plans and consultation exercises carried out in the last 5 years by East Sussex County Council now gathering dust, namely ‘Signposts to 2010’ and ‘Streets Ahead’. We simply ask, ‘What could possibly warrant acceptance of an increase in the population of Lewes by 10 % when almost nothing been done (except the on-street parking measures) to change or improve things for the travelling public?’
In ‘Streets Ahead’ the County Council clearly recognised the need to improve things as the following extracts from it show:
• ‘People have told us loud and clear that the current situation is unacceptable’.
• ‘It is important to plan well ahead so that opportunities can be seized when they arise’.
• ‘People have constantly said that they want to use public transport and to walk and cycle more but that there first be improved services and facilities’.
• ‘Any surplus income from the controlled parking scheme would allow some of the schemes to be brought forward more quickly’.
• ‘The Council is under no illusions about the potential difficulties in realising such a vision. However, the prize is potentially so great that we believe that the ideas should now at least be explored’.
• ‘Community Input is vital to the success of the whole strategy’.
The situation that we now find ourselves in highlights what our local authorities do: They consult, then look at their balance sheets, decide that proposed schemes are too expensive and shelve the reports and consider their job done. So ‘shelved’ was the ‘Signposts’ document that ESCC had to find and print a copy especially at our request. We urge people to read this excellent document by asking the County Council for one, but failing that you can read a summary on the ‘Lewes Matters’ website,which I have written for the reports section,that should be live some time today.
All that the authorities have managed to do so far is peck at the edges of the problem like constructing speed humps or widening pavements. Continuing to discuss issues such as these is the level of debate that we have sunk to. Memories are very short over such things, so that a few years on, development proposals are about to be considered which involve tinkering with traffic flows (which simply amount to a redistribution of cars, rather than any real alleviation of the problem) and the removal of the bus station (without any prospect of a replacement). We (the public and their elected representatives) then have to react to new circumstances and are left arguing about what best to do next. But the answers had already been thought through and ignored or forgotten. Your local councillors need to approach things in a much more visionary and joined up way if we are not to continuously repeat the mistakes of recent decades.
The current development proposals will have an enormous effect on every resident and every visitor to Lewes. The traffic infrastructure continues to bend under the lack of enlightened investment and ill considered development will prove to be the breaking point. Surely a debate on the Signposts to 2010 strategy should be opened now. If it isn’t, we should ask our councillors ‘why not?’. After all, there are still 4 years to go.
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