Performative consultations

Have you ever felt completely frustrated? Silly question – who hasn’t?

Having got over the shock of receiving a paper communication from RBWM, I found more information on their website as promised, but it was impossible to access the promised survey to express my opinion.

I’m presuming that all RBWM residents have received a small card with blue sky and fluffy clouds, purporting to be all about improving road safety and asking for our responses.

Being a curmudgeonly cynic, I can’t help wondering if it’s just a token gesture because Government red tape has forced them into it.

Do they really want to know what we think? Apparently RBWM wishes

(intends?) to install ANPR cameras in 10 new locations and wants to hear our views.

We’re told that the reasons for the planned cameras are to improve road safety, reduce traffic congestion, improve journey times for public transport, and ‘free up police time’.

I used the link given and found the rather limited relevant information online, but then wasn’t allowed access to the survey, as all my attempts to sign into my RBWM account failed.

I won’t bore you with the details, but my emails got no response, so after a couple of days I had to start the whole process from scratch and reregister before completing the survey (my hairdresser commented on my thinning scalp today, and though age may have a lot to do with it, I can’t help wondering if I had been literally tearing my hair out without realising!)

Let’s look at their declared reasons. Having cluttered the whole town with hideous tower blocks which must add to air pollution, and which will become greater if the golf course is destroyed, plus subjecting us to congestion spots all over the town, as relentless random roadworks pop up and down without warning or explanation, they are now giving us sanctimonious reasons for upping their income by adding more ANPR cameras.

Obviously, most of us will be sympathetic to these aims. But at what cost? For example, if I’m interpreting the minimal information correctly, a stretch of road outside Edmund Campion and Altwood schools would be closed to all vehicles at the beginning and end of the school day. Already there is a speed limit, school crossing patrols and zebra crossings.

I totally understand that parents would all be in favour, but assume it would mean that nearby residents would have to increase their journeys by taking circuitous routes, many in the morning rush hour, hence causing more possible congestion in different places, and thus increased pollution.

Incidentally, I must admit that I do wonder when and by whom planning permission for adjacent schools in a large residential area was given, and why.

I’m also interested, and somewhat puzzled by the proposed site at Grenfell Road, which is referred to in the document as ‘left turn only’.

Have I been illegally crossing straight over from the traffic lights at the bottom of Grenfell Road to proceed along past the station into Braywick Road? Or does it refer to the fact that vehicles are turning into the other end of Grenfell Road from the Bath Road, when it’s only drivers coming up Castle Hill that are permitted to make a left turn there?

I often drive up Castle Hill and am far more likely to be delayed by queues at the pedestrian crossing just beyond Grenfell Road, than I am by drivers trying to turn into Grenfell Road, and in any case, the chances of being slowed by queues going down Castle Hill are far higher.

There will of course be differing views, mostly dictated by where we live. Sadly, I wonder if it matters, as it appears to me that most RBWM proposals, especially where money is concerned, will have already been agreed on, and any consultation is just to make it look as though they care about our opinions.