Highways officers working on improving Spalding’s traffic flow have been urged to consider what the town was like when traffic lights were switched off.
Spalding Town Forum chairman George Aley and Spalding Wygate district councillor Roger Gambba-Jones fondly remember when traffic management was suspended during work on the Swan Street area a few years ago.
Lincolnshire County Council’s senior project leader Jonathan Wickham updated the forum at a meeting last week on the draft Spalding Transport Strategy, which sets out the position now and what is anticipated up until 2036, with thousands of new homes being built in the town and increased use of the upgraded rail line.
Coun Aley told Mr Wickham: “Traffic lights have made a massive difference to the flow.
“We can’t wait until 2036 for anything to be done – we need some transport management in the town now with measures which don’t cost anything.
“Even a small roundabout where we have traffic lights.”
Mr Wickham replied: “That’s what we are looking at as part of the signals review in 2016/17.”
Coun Aley pointed out that the Spalding Transport Strategy work had got under way in 2013, adding: “I think we deserve some action sooner rather than later.”
However, Mr Wickham insisted it would be wrong for the county council to take “drastic action” and a properly considered strategic approach was the right way to proceed.
Coun Gambba-Jones said: “We have proven on more than one occasion that things are better without them [traffic lights].”
He also insisted that the sequencing of traffic lights was “probably the single most annoying thing”.
“You have got drivers trying to beat the lights,” he said. “We get some ridiculous driver behaviour.”
And he asked: “If we accept that the users of the road network consider the traffic signals – pedestrian ones as well – are a problem but the transport experts don’t share that view, how are we going to have a meeting of minds?”
Mr Wickham told the meeting that the county council had a range of short-term and long-term solutions, but a funding strategy was a stumbling block.
Coun Christine Lawton (Wygate ward) asked: “Are there no quick fixes you can do because the problems are ridiculous? Is there no chance of retiming them?
“We’re talking about 2018 – people are losing patience.”
Mr Wickham promised that he would take that query back to his colleagues at Lincoln.
Castle ward member Coun Gary Taylor told Mr Wickham that things were so bad in Station Approach and Winsover Road that motorists were using alternative – and longer – routes to cross town.
Implying that it was not good environmentally, he said: “Drivers are going up West Elloe Avenue and along High Street, which is longer and something which surely should be avoided.”
Meanwhile, the pedestrian crossing in Winsover Road was discussed.
The meeting was reminded that it was installed to serve the long-gone Lincolnshire Co-op store and the Post Office, which is now slightly nearer town. Its necessity was called into question.
Spalding and District Area Chamber of Trade president Phil Scarlett said he wouldn’t use it to access the Post Office because it is beyond the building when walking from the direction of town.
Coun Gambba-Jones insisted that the slow reaction of the pedestrian crossing was a frustration to users and motorists.
He added: “Because they [pedestrians] can’t be bothered to wait they nip across anyway, then what you get is the traffic backing up to St Thomas’s Road and across the level crossing.”
- See The Spalding and South Holland Voice dated October 30 for more on this meeting
