http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/News/Article...articleID=14945

Now I have no particular qualifications or expertise in town planning, but is this not rather shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted? Ever since I have lived in the area, new housing and retail developments have been given the go-ahead with seemingly no strategic thinking whatsoever about roads or other infrastructure.

Wouldn't it be advisable for the Councils to solve the traffic problems in Newbury before building 2k5 new houses in and around the town or is that being too simplistic?

I agree with both of you, but it ain't going to happen.

Suggestions as to possible routes please. IMHO it would be as waste of time.

The councillor is suggesting that we don't want through traffic. Drivers will always opt for the shortest route, regardless of the traffic flow so a ring road would be under used.

If we had a ring road we could then have a 'proper' pedestrianise shopping centre.


It is what Reading, Swindon and Basingstoke did and do. Not that I am a great admirer of them.

None of the above really have a 'proper' ring road - they have disjointed bits of dual carriageway, usually which end in a bottle neck. Swindon has only just had two of their bottle necks removed ( on the A419/7 ) but all that has done is make the situation at Birdlip worse.
Most of the traffic in Newbury is folk either driving into town to go to work, or mums driving their kids to school.

You only have to look at the situation in the Wharf & over the canal bridge every day to realise that drivers are their own worse enemy. They deserve to sit in traffic

I think the problem is that Newbury was never ever designed for a large population and the layout of the existing housing and road structure will always restrict vehicle traffic. The population is just about being adaquately serviced. If the powers that be decide that they want Newbury to have a larger population then infrastructure must be a priority otherwise it will strangle itself.

Why then is Sunday lunch time often so bad on the A339?


That is a bit unfair; no-body looks for a traffic jam and one can develop in a matter of minutes in Newbury.

One of the problems is a lack of 'north circular' on the west said of town. If we had more canal crossings, that might improve things.

I still maintain that the pedestrianisation project is partly let down by an inappropriate road system in the town.

Unfair? I bet it is the same drivers each day. The A339 is a longer, but faster alternative, but people still drive down park way.

A339 on Sundays? Which bit?

Although it is besides the point; how do you know?


Down the link and on to the Police Station, etc...

Well Watson, using parkway to get across town isn't a route a person who does not know the town would take. Therefore one must assume those waiting on the one-way bridge etc know the town well, which means they must use the route often to be familiar with it.

The traffic on the A339 is hardly bad enough to warrant building a by pass - which I am sure would only be used by 'out of towners' I wonder, how many local people wanting to get from Wash Common to Shaw would ever think of using the A34?

My friend lives in Woolton Hill and when he used to work at West Berkshire Hospital he did exactly that.

I'd expect him to & most other to do the same. Woolton Hill is not in Newbury. I'm on about people driving out of the town - ie say from near Park House School & then on to the A34 when going to Waitrose.

Well, that's what we do.

Mind you, you do sometimes take your life in your hands joining the A34 - the slip roads are far too short for safety.

Well, that's what we do.

Mind you, you do sometimes take your life in your hands joining the A34 - the slip roads are far too short for safety.

OK, so it is an assumption then.


I'm not sure a by-pass was what was proposed. My view is about making navigating around town better so as to improve exit/access and so that we may have a 'proper' pedestrian shopping centre.

It is all rather pointless anyway, as it ain't going to happen any time soon. If anything, perhaps Thatcham deserve a bridge for the railway crossing more than anything.

Unless a survey is conducted the nature of the journey origination of anyone at the wharf is assumption....

A ring road in town - pushed through existing development?

Huh?

If it isn't a green field by-pass, ( or on the W side of town utilising the A34 ), ie a distance from the town centre it will have to be built over existing development won't it. ( I agree that it is all hypothetical as it will never be considered ).

Not like the A339 Newbury - Basingstoke dual carrigeway plan that was considered at great cost.

Exactly; which is why I sure this is all that we will hear of it. That doesn't necessarily mean it wouldn't be a good idea if we were able to though.


Sorry, my thickness strikes again and I don't know what you mean!

About 20 years ago a plan was drawn up, with scale maps, elevations plans, a fully proposed route, etc etc to make the A339 into dual carriageway, from Basingstoke to Newbury.

The DoT produced a thick A4 sized consultation document which was available to all & sundry. I don't know if it was to do with the use of Greenham as a base for Cruise, but the plan must have cost a fair few £ to design & produce.

The only piece of new road that is going to be built is the bit between Scats and Hambridge road thus allowing even more traffic from the new Racecourse developement to access the Police Station Roundabout. Happy days.

Didn't we have a ring road built around Newbury about 10 years ago..... I think it was called the Newbury Bypass!!!!

While no one can dispute that it helped alleviate the traffic at the time, as pointed out by protesters at the time; in 10 years it will be just as bad again! and here we are! - Well in fairness it's not as bad; 12 years ago I was travelling from Warwickshire to Burghclere at weekends and it used to take me 45 minutes to get to the Robin Hood roundabout and a further 45 minutes to get to Burghclere, so it's no where near as bad, but certainly traffic flow through Newbury is a MAJOR problem.

With the bypass built I cannot think of where you would build a ring road that would be easily accessible from both sides of the town without drivers having to go out of their way to get to it, otherwise no one will use it.

The problem I feel stems from the two roundabouts at the Police station and Burger King, if these could somehow be adjusted to either have a slip road off and on or a fly over so that through traffic could continue without stopping then almost all the traffic issues would be resolved. How you would find the space for this though I don't know!

You add more houses, you increase the traffic. Where would you build such a ring road without going through greenbelts?

A ring road may just have the shoppers going to other locations, thus upsetting those shops already in town.

The traffic is much better than it was before the bypass.

Don't let that worry you, they are all experts on here.... so anything anybody wants to know then some jack in the box will pop up and guide you to the promised land.

Well it's certainly a bit late if you try to leave a comment on the Consultation Questionnaire because you get the following answer :-

This survey is now closed.

The bypass took the A34 through traffic out of town - and is still providing a huge improvement. The choice of the western route meant that lots of traffic to and from the A34 and Thatcham or from the Chieveley junction to and from Basingstoke still comes through town.

Complete the ring with an eastern road and a lot more traffic would be taken out of town - especially if there was an exit for the racecourse.

It's a major pain, especially now that the Kennet Heath development is fully occupied and so even more traffic crawls over that bottleneck. But a bridge is another one of those pie-in-the-sky projects which will never get off the ground.... The 'level crossing bridge' would have to be massive as it wouldn't just be the railway it would need to cross but also the canal and the river. Quite a span for the approach ramps.. would need several million to see that sort of a project through and those figures will never be found for such a relatively minor road.

The cost of a bridge is simply an excuse - trotted out by those living 'the other side' who feel they should be immune from consequences of modern world. The cost is really quite cheap - mainly earth works, there are many other examples particularly on the old Southern lines. Appreciate that we in this part of Berkshire doesn't do bridges very well - i.e. refurbishing the bridge in Parkway and the joke that is Blackboys Bridge west of the Station

I've already said on another forum that with these 10,500 residential units coming online, our focus now needs to be on infrastructure. I don't think a ring road is a viable option, but I do believe the A339 corridor needs improving. The Robin Hood Roundabout needs replaced with something a lot more simpler and effective, my own personal view would be to have the A339 go over the A4. To enable this, we would have to move the fire station and I'm sure there would be a need for other works to make it possible.

I notice that in this consultation "offering more choice" regarding transport options is mentioned repeatedly. If this was genuinely the case, why are we subsidising the bus company by around £2m a year and allowing them to cut services, such as the 11 service which provides late evening services and is the only service to serve the northern streets of Thatcham? What we need is a full review of bus services and who provides them. Does all of the money given to Reading Buses go on services within West Berkshire?

As for rail, I believe that we should be pushing for an hourly fast train for Newbury to London and the South West, with an hourly Bedwyn - Paddington semi fast and an hour stopping service between Newbury and Reading. Station security is a very important issue that needs addressing right now, and I would suggest to network rail that if they install CCTV cameras, surely they could be monitored as part of the West Berks CCTV network? Information is always an issue at are stations, I know that Thatcham and Newbury often have the info screen out of use, and what I can remember Kintbury doesn't have a screen?

Another issue is that of the elderly who live in rural areas not served by public transportation. With the travel tokens gone for these people, they are often left in limbo. One good example is a lady who lives out near Basildon. There is one bus a week from her village for her to go and get shopping etc. If she ever needed to go to the doctors to get something seen too, she can't afford a taxi and would have to wait upto a week to get her issue seen too. With more and more bus services getting withdrawn, we need a solution to ensure that these people are allowed to remain in their homes.

Finally for now, taxi licensing. West Berks have issued arround 300 licences I'm told and the fees get hiked every year. It is an easy way to make money, I accept that. But what I don't think is acceptable is when we have people coming here from Birmingham and Slough to work as a cab driver. Let's enforce a cap on the number of cabs within West Berks, and work with the drivers to ensure that they get a fair deal. In my hometown, I think they have 120 cabs. By having a cab, owners ensure that there is always a driver in each cab and the level of service for residents is more effective. By having no viable plan regarding cabs besides hiking the fees each year and accepting all comers, we end up with a poor level of service for taxi users.

What would you imagine the cost of a bridge to be? I think that it would be good to have a bridge, but the main question regarding all infrastructure projects here in West Berks is where is the money coming from? We didn't demand money from developers for the significant infrastructure that we require, and now we have to provide these roads, bridges and buildings after the horse has already bolted as someone else put it. This is another reason why I believe we need a planning review. Why have we allowed all of this development without improving our infrastructure as part of it???

Isn't there £18m of contractors S106 money unspent in the Council coffers that could be used to improve the infrastructure?

Yep, we were told it would solve all Newbury's traffic problems !

I hate to say told you so - but told you so!

Yep, it was built on the WRONG (but cheapest financially) route.

I think we need a whole new thread on finances ;-)

That £18m wouldn't pay for much.

It may have been the cheapest route financially, but it was also less expensive in many other ways.

But DIDN'T solve Newbury's traffic problems!

(I will leave it there - no point in a belated by-pass debate!)

It never could. The problem is people driving into Newbury.

The A34 is part of TERN - the bypass would have been built regardless of what Rendell claims.

AND people and lorries getting from the A339 Basingstoke Road to the A34 / M4.

Well if they won't follow the road signs...

Wbhilst the Eastern route would have been better on paper the logistics of actually building it pervented such as scheme ever seriously being considered.

That's right - they don't - they take the shortest route.

So a ring road would be a waste of time then.....

The number 11 bus only provides late night services Friday and Saturday, the rest of the week it finishes at 6.30 from the bus station and 6.10 from Thatcham. So much for Ian Duncan Smith's catch a bus to find work. The excuse for stopping it is it is not profitable. It is well used, but a big proportion of passengers are children (half fare) and older people with bus passes.

They ignore the road signs and follow the sat-nav regardless.

I thought the purpose of subsidising bus routes and bus companies was that they would then provide services for the elderly and students etc.

Impose a weight restriction, that would solve the lorry problem instantly.

You would have thought so wouldn't you. Shaw Road area has a high proportion of elderly people owing to the purpose build housing there. These people will now have to drive to get to the hospital, into town or supermarkets. The children, who currently catch the bus to school will now walk.

Where is the logic of proposing a park and ride scheme when we cannot maintain the service we have at the moment. Strangely, buses servicing Reading have increased their routes and regularity and fares have decreased since they took over Newbury buses.

Several million. However, Newbury is no longer a little market town - a fact un noticed by most of our politricians locally over the past twenty odd years. They seem to think protecting West Berkshire is keeping a few sleepy village pubs going, so the wolly jumper set can down their half pints and watch the sunset over the downs. Look around - this is now a dormitory suburb - Swindon without the facilities. Where does the money come from? Our community charges that's where. These should be spent matching infrastructure to population - rather than pished away in Scotland (Central Govt. Support Grants) or repairing hardly used rural tracks - so hay waggons don't get punctures. Lets face facts; old Newbury is dead and nothing is going to revive it. Lets make it better for everyone - particularly those who pay the bills.

I share peoples concerns. Newbury is ever-growing and we need to sort out our road system to accommodate our growth.