Mile End travel plan: Where's the evidence it will work?

7:03pm Friday 27th July 2012 in News

Sceptical: Peter Hewitt fears the travel strategy won't work Sceptical: Peter Hewitt fears the travel strategy won't work

TRAFFIC bosses have been accused of botching plans to cope with traffic in a community where the first of 3,000 new homes has just been finished.
 

Essex County Council, Colchester Council and consultants Mouchel’s have drawn up the North Colchester Travel Strategy, which aims to make gridlock in the area a thing of the past.
 

It comes as the first of 1,500 homes on the former Severalls Hospital site were unveiled at a ceremony today.
 

Plans for another 1,600 homes to be built on land between Nayland Road and Bergholt Road went on show to the public last week.
 

Those proposals also include two schools, a supermarket and community facilities.
 

Members of Myland Community Council say they are “angry and frustrated” a new draft of the travel plan has been released despite being incomplete.
 

They say it does not include research demonstrating how the area could cope with additional traffic from the new homes.
 

Pete Hewitt, a community councillor, said: “As it stands, there is no evidence that proposed infrastructure changes, which include a change to road layouts and the introduction of new bus lanes, will either handle significant extra traffic, or encourage sufficient numbers of people to adopt public transport instead.
 

“Myland Community councillors have repeatedly asked Essex County Council for the modelling data, but have been refused at every request.
 

“And with planning applications now lodged with Colchester Council for developments at Chesterwell and Severalls, there is a significant danger that permission will be granted for these major developments without a workable, evidence-based travel strategy being in place.”
 

The basis of Essex County Council’s plan is that as people move into the new developments, they will use public transport, cycle or walk instead of getting in their cars.
 

However, Mr Hewitt said there is no proof this will happen.
 

He added: “We’re faced with botched plans that are riddled with engineering problems and funding issues and which will create five new congestion points in north Colchester over the next few years.”
 

The North Colchester Travel Plan’s draft proposals include a new circular system at North Station, extra lanes linking the roundabouts south of the station and new slip roads on and off Cymbeline Way.


The proposed changes would be carried out in 2015 and 2016 – once the new road linking Northern Approach Road with junction 28 of the A12 and the new park and ride has been built.

But it is not clear who would fund the £13 million scheme.


An Essex County Council spokesman said it is working with Colchester Council on the travel plan, which focuses on encouraging people to use public transport, cycle or walk.

Comments(18)

Bigh321 says...
7:25pm Fri 27 Jul 12

You have to be a total idiot to believe these new home owners will use public transport, cycle or walk, they won't they will all own 1 or 2 cars,so they will end up parking in the street making it a dangerous place for the cyclist or pedestrian, just walk round roman place off mill road it's chocked full of cars.
Don't expect anything less off a council that ok'd planning permission for the 10,000 seater stadium with only 700 parking spaces.

Come on Colchester council sort it out, or at least use your head!

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jut1972 says...
8:49pm Fri 27 Jul 12

Crass stupidity and wilful ignorance on behalf of CBC. No initiatives they have led in the last twenty years have led to a significant increase in use of public transport or cycling. What's different now?

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Im_Like_HELLO says...
9:37pm Fri 27 Jul 12

Unless the owners/occupants of these houses are elderly or retired most will be of working age and need to travel to work and unless there are local jobs they will have to use cars because of the distance of Severalls from the existing public transport hub of Colchester.

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Say It As It Is OK? says...
8:19am Sat 28 Jul 12

The developers promoting the Chesterwell development were spouting the same drivel about new residents cycling, walking, using buses or taxis. They were convinced it was the right thing but they didn't lead by example. They came to the presentation in their cars!

CBC and ECC have proven beyond doubt they have no idea about how to find the solutions facing the roads infrastructure around Mile End if all they can come up with is:
Get on your bike!

Its absolutely crass and condescending on their part to think residents believe that relying on removing the car is the answer. How many times do you need to be told It won't work!

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jim_bo says...
8:20am Sat 28 Jul 12

Them that can do, them that can't teach, and them that can't do or teach work for CBC and ECC.

And as it turns out the more incompetent you are the higher up the chain you can climb.

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wellnow says...
9:11am Sat 28 Jul 12

what do these people need to get to town for?with the new a12 link they can go anywhere.

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Sdapeze says...
12:49pm Sat 28 Jul 12

You lot seem to have missed the point. Unless the planners can justify all this housebuilding, then the housebuilding cannot happen. The only way to do it is to falsify the facts, to tell lies, to commit fraud. This is exactly what is going on here. If they can't touch the bankers for it, they certainly won't be prosecuting our own home based fraudsters.

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lollardknight says...
1:30pm Sun 29 Jul 12

The trouble with modern day new builds is the council and developers just don't care about the new house owners, they rush through terrible laid out builds with as many properties crammed in as they can then wash their hands of future troubles. Owning a property on mersea I can only comment on events I see and hear of here and properties built with room for two cars when modern day lazy families have three to four cars, thus parking in the road is normal and makes the areas look horrible. Added with poor workmanship and cheap materials a lot of the local builders are building shocking properties whilst making millions in profit. Add to this the social housing issue's that now associate themselves with new builds colchester is heading for future chaos and disaster.
Please colchester council listen to the local people and build us and our children a great town for the future.

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jut1972 says...
7:16pm Wed 1 Aug 12

Sdapeze wrote:
You lot seem to have missed the point. Unless the planners can justify all this housebuilding, then the housebuilding cannot happen. The only way to do it is to falsify the facts, to tell lies, to commit fraud. This is exactly what is going on here. If they can't touch the bankers for it, they certainly won't be prosecuting our own home based fraudsters.
It's not the housebuilder justifying the house building, they dont have to. It's ECC saying there will be no travel issues as it's their travel plan.

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newtactic says...
11:08pm Wed 1 Aug 12

There was never a need for me, or most of my friends, to own a car or learn to drive when I lived in London. I had to learn to drive when I moved to Essex, as there was no other way I could get to work. Fortunately, public transport provision has improved since then and I don't need one any more. This is just as well, as, on the rare occasions I have to borrow a car, I find the tedium of negotiating Colchester's gridlocked traffic and having to breathe in noxious traffic fumes most unpleasant. Evidence of planning gaffs and errors over the decades can be seen all over Colchester... these include insufficient open space in developments for children to play, houses with no front gardens, houses built on water meadows and below river level... pavements too narrow for two mums with pushchairs to pass each other safely, footpaths diverted the long way round developments, the felling of "preserved" trees, to name only a few.
And don't you think Pete Seager, who was a relatively a wealthy man, was an unforgivable snob with his sneer at people who live in "little boxes"?

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newtactic says...
11:18pm Wed 1 Aug 12

Apologies.. that should read Pete Seeger!

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wellnow says...
9:47am Thu 2 Aug 12

the osborne strategy is a new form of sub-prime.so build build build.so long as you can find enough people with 40%.

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newtactic says...
10:35am Thu 2 Aug 12

@wellnow... according to your calculations short-term gain is Osborne's policy, at the expense of the future environment and future economic stability. As far as the proposed development on Mile End fields is concerned, the two Essex builders, Countryside Properties and Mersea Homes have a good track record for quality design, building and attention to the environment. Scaled down, there could be a couple of "garden villages" on the site with plenty of open space. A car-less development would be desirable and ideal. It would safer and healthier for all generations... but, sadly, in reality I suspect this ideal would be unaffordable and unattainable.

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newtactic says...
11:50pm Thu 2 Aug 12

@ jollyfisher... I think you will find the site in question is within walking distance of all local amenities, including the town centre. If not car-less communities, the scheme could be really daring by introducing a car-share arrangement, kept in one garage for each group of say four or six houses. Imagine garden-suburb style housing set around green open spaces devoid of vehicles. Homes so desirable, families would be happy to forego the luxury of owning a car.

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Bigh321 says...
7:42am Fri 3 Aug 12

newtactic wrote:
@ jollyfisher... I think you will find the site in question is within walking distance of all local amenities, including the town centre. If not car-less communities, the scheme could be really daring by introducing a car-share arrangement, kept in one garage for each group of say four or six houses. Imagine garden-suburb style housing set around green open spaces devoid of vehicles. Homes so desirable, families would be happy to forego the luxury of owning a car.
Lol on all points made here!
Nice idea but let's stick to the real world!

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newtactic says...
10:04am Fri 3 Aug 12

@Bigh321... Our real world here in Colchester is frequent traffic gridlocks, road accidents and increasing air pollution. Do you really want to "stick" to it?

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wellnow says...
3:49pm Fri 3 Aug 12

no the point here is the world's gone mad.marx said it would happen.

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murphypuss says...
8:31am Sun 5 Aug 12

Colchester Borough Council (CBC) will receive a windfall in the name of a '106 agreement' from the builders for allowing the builders to develop. CBC and Essex County Council (EC) have some great ideas as to trying to encourage people not to use cars, but this is not a sound, valid reason for allowing all of this building. The same argument was used when building all the new homes opposite ASDA, with a new school being promised as well, but the outcome was no school, with homes being all on top of each other, with few people actually using their parking spaces around the back of their houses, and using the road in front of their houses instead. When the planning department actually wake up to reality and actually try and get from one side of Colchester to another on a Saturday and understand the chaos they, the planners, have created already. Stop now, we have hundreds of empty homes already in Colchester, yet we seemed to think the only way forward is to build, build, build.

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