Traffic impact study hopes are dashed

VILLAGERS have been thwarted in efforts to launch a study on how hundreds more cars on rural roads will affect their community.

Concerns about likely traffic generated by families in thousands of new homes planned for the A5 corridor had prompted people in Stoke Golding to look into commissioning a professional survey.

They say the village is already plagued by drivers using its narrow streets as rat-runs. Fears run high that once approved estates materialise for Hinckley, as well as the Barwell and Earl Shilton SUEs along with housing in Wed- dington and the Long Shoot in Nuneaton, the situation will be even worse.

Serious concerns were raised during the recent public consultation events held as part of the development of the Stoke Golding Neighbourhood Plan.

Plan organisers decided to scope out consultants for an independent traffic impact survey and hoped a grant through Government organisation Locality which issues neighbourhood plan cash, would be forthcoming to fund the work.

However, the advisory team has been told no money is available.

Jim Hope from the advisory committee said: “Sadly it has not been possible to obtain a grant for a traffic impact survey for the vil- lage. We were hopeful that a grant could be obtained because we felt certain that the large number of proposed housing developments, such as those at Barwell, Earl Shilton Triumph and north Nuneaton, would affect the amount of traffic travelling through our village. First adopters of neighbourhood plans had managed to obtain technical grants to look at traffic. Unfortunately three years on, times have changed.”

He said reasons given were that addressing transport and traffic issues was not really within the purpose of a neighbourhood plan, neighbourhood planning could only have a limited impact on traffic issues and none of the proposed housing development was within the actual neighbour- hood area.

Mr Hope said: “This was very disappointing, at least in part, because a lot of hard work had gone into finding and assessing potential consultants.”

Despite this setback progress on the neighbourhood plan continues. Around 30% of households completed the recent questionnaire and there were 40 responses from under 18s who were targeted with a youth survey.

The Rural Communities Council will be independently analysing the survey results and producing a report, which will be used to shape the plan.

It is expected the report will be punlished by mid-June and will be made available to read electronically and in a paper format.