Highways & Congestion
Highway matters have always been a subject for the Hampshire County Structure Plan and for the Hart District Local Plan. Both of these planning documents have now been swept away by the new planning regime. But we are currently in an interim period when the last version of each these two documents still provides planning guidance whilst the plans generated by the new regime are being prepared. There will be no County Structure Plan in the future, so the only local document will be the Hart Local Development Framework (LDF) , which is in fact not a single document but a suite of documents.
In January this year you were consulted by Hart on the new LDF's Core Strategy & Development Control Policies, Issues and Options Document, but there was nothing in it proposing road improvements. Objective K of the proposed strategy was:
Developing opportunities for the use of alternatives to the private car, whilst recognising that the predominently rural nature of the District means that the car will form an essential part of many journeys within Hart.
Congestion
Yateley people own an extremely high car number of cars per household. When the Yateley Society analysed the 1991 census it was found that Yateley West Ward had the highest car ownership of any ward in Hampshire, Berkshire and Surrey. Dr Richard Johnston's 1994 paper Yateley in the 1991 Census found that Yateley people depend on the car to get to work, when compared with Fleet, since there have always been relatively few jobs in Yateley, there is no station in the town, and public bus services have either been poor, or not running to places people want to get too, or both. For several decades Yateley commuters have been used to delays getting in and out of Yateley every morning and evening rush hours. The construction of Junction 4A in the 1980s did help the eastbound jams, but the construction of the Meadows Roundabout probably made matters worse again. It is not uncommon to have to queue for ten minutes on Vigo Lane in the morning.
New Initiatives
In order to reduce car usage various government 'initiatives' have been tried over the years. In order to discourage car ownership the number of car spaces per newly build house was drastically reduced to one and a half car spaces per dwelling. In Yateley this has of course lead to more parking on the street and on the verges. In order to try to reduce car usage car parking spaces in new office developments have also been reduced and car parks in towns have been reduced or not expanded. Calls by local people for a new car park in Yateley are likely to continue to fall on deaf ears.
School Travel Plans
The most effective way of reducing car usage is likely to be via various 'travel-to-xxxxx' schemes. Sainsburys sponsors a bus to encourage us to travel-to-shop by bus. The new 'silicon valley' office developments at Junction 4A run a 'travel-to-work' bus for employees. If the new development at Clark's Farm goes ahead the new occupants will have to prepare and implement a Travel Plan.
All the schools in Yateley are being encouraged to prepare and implement School Travel Plans. The first school to have its Travel Plan adopted by Hampshire County Council was Westfield Infant School, the plan calling for a 20 mph zone. This has now been implemented. Yateley Manor School produced a compehensive Travel Plan which was adopted in 2004 by the County Council. School Travel Plans must be reviewed every two years so Yateley Manor is now embarking on its first revision. The combined School Travel Plan for Frogmore Community Campus and Potley Hill Primary School has just been approved by the County Council.
Click here to access adopted School Travel Plans as they become available to us:
The Government's target is that all schools should have an adopted Travel Plan by 2010. To find out what progress your school is making click here to access School Travel Plans in Hart. This site has other useful information about school travel plans. Worksheet T3 of the Yateley Health Check asks questions about Ease of Movement around the Town.
If you have a COMMENT about Yateley's roads and congestion please use the COMMENT button above (if you have the password) or send us an email.
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.