Correspondance from Nigel Leighton
Director of Environment and Neighbourhood Services (23rd May 2016)
Councillor Pollard advised us last week that the Cherry Burton Parish Council had further questions regarding the speed surveys that the Council had commissioned for Highgate and Bishop Burton Road.
As I noted in my email to you dated 21 April, all speed concern sites are assessed under the same conditions and those surveyed in Cherry Burton are not close to the enforcement score required to justify speed enforcement by Humberside Police, 16 points. To give you an idea of some of the other speed concern sites where Police enforcement is now taking place, I have listed some examples below, where all surveys were undertaken on 30mph posted speed limit roads:
- B1253, Sledmere - surveyed August 2015 - daily traffic flow = 3,283 - daily offenders (35mph and over) = 1,156 (35.2%) - SMP score = 20
- Main Street, Burstwick - surveyed September 2015 - daily traffic flow = 3,718 - daily offenders (35mph and over) = 1,269 (34.1%) - SMP score = 27
- Staithes Road, Preston - surveyed November 2015 - daily traffic flow = 4,995 - daily offenders (35mph and over) = 1,914 (38.6%) - SMP score = 37
- Main Street, Roos - surveyed November 2015 - daily traffic flow = 2,395 - daily offenders (35mph and over) = 862 (36%) - SMP score = 16
Bishop Burton Road scored 2 and Highgate scored 5 in their respective SMP assessments. We do not add together separate sites to obtain a higher score as Police officers enforcing speeds can only be in one location at a time. Comparing the highest score of the two Cherry Burton surveys to those noted above, Highgate only has 318 offenders per day, 544 less per day than Main Street in Roos, which just obtained a score of 16 points in the SMP. From this comparison, we must conclude that the numbers and proportions of drivers travelling at 35mph and over on these roads in Cherry Burton are to low to warrant speed enforcement by the Police.
In comparison with other villages and towns in the East Riding of Yorkshire, Cherry Burton is relatively lightly trafficked and has a very good road safety record. I am now satisfied that my officers have spent adequate time reviewing these results and cannot dedicate any more time to these requests when we have many other enquiries from around the County where the issues are more acute and resources have been reduced. The Council will not be able to survey these roads in Cherry Burton again until a period of five years has passed to account for new developments in the vicinity of the village.
Correspondance from Nigel Leighton
Director of Environment and Neighbourhood Services (21st April 2016)
Thank you for your email on behalf of the Parish Council regarding the speed of traffic through the village of Cherry Burton.
The Speed Management Procedure, under which Cherry Burton was assessed, was established to ensure that all speed concern sites were assessed under the same conditions and have to meet set criteria. As you can appreciate both the Council and the Police have limited resources and the criteria was set as such to ensure that those sites with a significantly high offending rate and with a collision history received additional measures.
In the case of Cherry Burton the locations were selected by the Parish Council and realistically the number of turning vehicles would not make such an impact whereby the outcome would be different.
Officers have dedicated time to Cherry Burton and I am satisfied that it has been assessed in the same fair manner as other sites.
With regards to HGV traffic the numbers are low. In the 7 day period the number of HGVs recorded on Bishop Burton Road was 74 which equates to 3 per hour. 41 HGVs were recorded on Highgate which equates to 1 per hour. These numbers are significantly low and not such where we would look at imposing a weight limit.
Correspondance from Janet Wardale
Clerk to Cherry Burton Parish Council (1st April 2016)
Dear Mr Leighton
Thank you for the traffic survey results which were discussed at the Cherry Burton Parish Council meeting on 8th March.
A number of points were raised from the data on which the Councillors would appreciate your comments:-
On the Bishop Burton Road we find 22.1% offenders (207 cars per day exceeded the speed limit).
On Highgate we find 30.5% offenders (318 cars were exceeding the speed limit).
If we add the two sites together, 26.7% of cars were offending - 525 cars per day entering Cherry Burton were speeding.This seems a very high percentage?
How does the percentage of offenders coming through the village compare with other surveys conducted by the ERYC?.
The loops were placed in a situation that measures the speed of traffic entering/leaving the village and the average speed is irrelevant as traffic entering and leaving The Meadows and The Drive will only be travelling at circa 10 mph which will affect the average speed over the loops.
It was felt a more significant analysis should tell us the speed of the offenders in bands of 5 mph. Is this possible to calculate from the survey data?
Does the traffic survey tell us the number of HGV vehicles per day?
The residents of the village are still complaining about speeding traffic, and this seems to have been proved by the survey but it would seem that there is little that can be done,
Correspondance from Nigel Leighton
Director of Environment and Neighbourhood Services (11th Feb 2016)
Further to the Parish Council's request for further speed surveys to be undertaken at locations of their choice, please see a table of comparison of the recent surveys and those undertaken in 2013.
The results of both surveys have been assessed under the Council’s Speed Management Procedure and neither site has scored enough points to qualify for Police Enforcement or Intervention from our Road Safety Team (0-12 points – no further action, 12-15 points – Road Safety and 15+ points Police Enforcement). The above table demonstrates that speeds have not significantly changed within the previous 2 year period which is good to see.
Unfortunately the Council cannot justify a spend for any further engineering measures on either Bishop Burton Road or Highgate as both roads have good road safety records and have the benefit of clear gateway entries and vehicle activated signs.
With regards to introducing a graduated speed limit, some graduated speed limits have been used as transition limits (also known as ‘buffer zones’) to help reduce the speed of traffic entering a 30mph speed limit on busier roads into towns and some villages, although the Council has moved away from these as there is a set guidance from the Department for Transport as to where graduated limits can be implemented that require some level of development along the road. In addition they are not popular with the Police for enforcement purposes if the surrounding environment does not match the speed limit.
Funding from Central Government has been greatly reduced and the Council has to focus on casualty reduction sites as opposed to sites where there is fear or expectation of a collision.
An entry/treatment/chicane could be constructed on the entrance to the village on Highgate at an estimated cost of £15,000 - £20,000. However as detailed earlier this would not meet the highway funding priorities, therefore requiring funding by other arrangements, i.e. parish council, etc.