Request for Traffic Management Measures along Stubbsfield Road

I refer to the petition, signed by local residents regarding requests for traffic calming measures on Stubbsfield Road, Newcastle-under-Lyme. I can advise you that receipt of the petition will be reported to Cllr Helen Fisher, Cabinet Member for Highways & Transport.

In general terms, when considering the safety concerns reported by residents along their street, Staffordshire County Council takes road safety extremely seriously and as such welcomes communication from local residents offering suggestions to improve areas that are of particular concern to them for consideration.

In order for the County Council to satisfy its Statutory Duty all reported road traffic collisions involving personal injury across the county are continually reviewed by a dedicated team and by looking for clusters and trends in this accident data, where vehicle speeds are a contributory factor, the team identifies sites and routes where actions can be taken to reduce the number of people hurt on our roads. Any improvement schemes resulting from road safety investigations can therefore be prioritised and also justified in terms of their cost.

Thankfully Stubbsfield Road does not meet the criteria in terms of speed related collisions for speed reducing measures, such as the requested 20mph speed limit, to be considered at this time. The County Council will therefore continue to monitor data for this location.

Where there is no justification for speed reduction measures the Staffordshire Safer Roads Partnership (SSRP) actively works with communities who are concerned about a speeding problem in their locality and this location could benefit from community-led initiatives such as Community Speed Watch. The SSRP website www.staffssaferroads.co.uk offers advice and guidance on enforcement and educative schemes, which give communities the resources and confidence to address their concerns directly.

Similarly there is no justification for the installation of bend warning signs and I do have to state that it would be a rare occasion for such signs to be justified on a minor residential road.

With regards to the request for the ‘Access Only’ this would require a Traffic Regulation Order and there is no justification to do so on Stubbsfield Road. Whilst there are a number of historical locations where this type of Order is present the Police struggle to provide the resource to carry out enforcement of these and would not agree to the implementation of additional Orders. In addition there is no justification to install the signs requested stating no access to The Avenue, the A34 and Parkstone Avenue.

In terms of the request to changes to the parking permitted along Stubbsfield Road I understand that the current arrangement was installed as part of a review of the issue of hospital staff parking all day causing problems for the residents on The Avenue and other streets, including Stubbsfield Road. During the lengthy consultation process to finalise a scheme I believe that there was a request for parking facilities within Stubbsfield Road to enable visitors to park for up to two hours during the week between 9am and 5pm, on one side, which prevents all day parking by workers from the hospital previously considered to be an issue. I am therefore surprised that there is a request to remove the parking facility which the bays currently provide. Whilst there is currently no funding available to change the current parking provision I have ensured that the petition request has been added to the road file for future reference.  

Should you require further information regarding your petition please contact David Greatbatch on (01538) 483022.

Yours sincerely

Amanda Felton

Executive Support Officer