Road Safety Must Be The Transport Priority in Our Villages

6.52.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Sun 21st Oct 2007

Printed in the Bucks Free Press 12th October 2007

Dear Editor,

I wrote to the Bucks Free Press in November 2006 to raise concerns about County Council road safety spending priorities. In his published response (letters page 13th December 2006), Councillor Colston confirmed that:

"in this financial year amongst the schemes to go to legal public consultation before Christmas are pedestrian crossings in High Street, Prestwood and High Street, Great Missenden that will be sited to aid not only the council policy of "Every Child Matters" but will benefit the elderly and disabled."

I was grateful for that public assurance, not least because we have been campaigning publicly over many years for urgent road safety improvements in our villages, including new crossings in Prestwood and Great Missenden, and will continue to do so. No-one who walks along Great Missenden and Prestwood's commuter blighted High Streets can claim that they are child, elderly or disability friendly environments at the moment.

Ten months on from Councillor Colston's letter, the "High Street" Great Missenden crossing appears to have been ruled out on technical grounds and will now be sited on Station Approach. We welcome the eventual addition of a crossing on Station Approach, but this still leaves open the extremely important question of how best to improve child road safety along the busy High Street and its "feeder" roads including London Road, Rignall road and Aylesbury road.

Originally, the Great Missenden "High Street" crossing was supposed to be part of an integrated package of measures to improve road safety on the west side of the village, to include for example a kerb extension at the High Street/Rignall Road junction, and village entry features at Mobwell and Rignall road. In principle, a "High Street" crossing between Station Approach and Rignall Road would have benefited the many children living in the Rignall Road/Winslow Field/Headland Close area who walk/cycle to the village primary school. If it is now ruled out, the County Council needs to think again urgently about other possible High Street road safety measures for children living in the village and walking to their local school eg as a minimum a crossing patrol.

In Prestwood, the High Street pedestrian crossing proposal was part of a much longer list of proposed improvements promised publicly back in March 2005, none of which have been implemented to date.

We welcome the long overdue addition of any road safety improvements in our villages, but there is still a very long way to go before all sensible and practical measures called for by local parents and other residents have been put in place. Last December, Councillor Colston accused me of wanting a "nanny state" approach. I'm happy to plead guilty to that charge. As far as child road safety is concerned, far better the active "nanny state" than the current lack of urgency and inaction.

Yours Sincerely,

Seb Berry

Chairman

Great Missenden, Prestwood and Heath End Liberal Democrats