letter to the Standard, 18/3/12
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colchesterfoeEssex County Standard, letters page.
Carfree High Street
Dear Editor,
A huge amount of nonsense has been written recently about the Carfree High Street which we hope is going to start this summer after being promised for over a decade. Traffic congestion and pollution in the town centre has become very serious. More people in the UK die from traffic pollution than road accidents.
It is repeatedly wrongly called 'pedestrianised' which it could not be because of the need for our buses to have access down the High Street. The centre of Colchester is already pedestrianised within Head Street, High Street, Queen Street and St John's Street.
We oppose restricting disabled vehicle parking which is not a problem. And if all delivery vehicles are forced to deliver before 10am as proposed it would bring daily gridlock in the morning peak hours - so leave them out of the ban.
However, the car ban must start at 8am not 10am to cut morning peak congestion. We did a traffic count on a Friday last November from 9am to 10am. 366 private cars drove into High Street, causing four snarl-ups in Head Street and on North Hill as traffic and buses were gridlocked.
Some correspondents are unaware of the long planning process and positive public consultation some years ago. There was also unanimous support for a carfree High Street from a forum of different transport users, business representatives, local and county councillors.
More people are using the good bus services from all the outlying large villages and towns as well as within the urban area of Colchester. Buses bring over 100,000 people into the town centre every week which benefits our businesses which are doing even better than Ipswich or Chelmsford.
Colchester has many central carparks. Bus and coach users need and deserve their one small bus park interchange in Queen Street, which was granted a legal covenant in the 1960s by the county council for public use for a bus park. It was also featured in the Colchester Transport strategy with a predicted 60% increased bus use.
Yours sincerely,
Paula Whitney, Co-ordinator,
Colchester & NE Essex Friends of the Earth,
4 Shears Crescent, West Mersea.
Carfree High Street
Dear Editor,
A huge amount of nonsense has been written recently about the Carfree High Street which we hope is going to start this summer after being promised for over a decade. Traffic congestion and pollution in the town centre has become very serious. More people in the UK die from traffic pollution than road accidents.
It is repeatedly wrongly called 'pedestrianised' which it could not be because of the need for our buses to have access down the High Street. The centre of Colchester is already pedestrianised within Head Street, High Street, Queen Street and St John's Street.
We oppose restricting disabled vehicle parking which is not a problem. And if all delivery vehicles are forced to deliver before 10am as proposed it would bring daily gridlock in the morning peak hours - so leave them out of the ban.
However, the car ban must start at 8am not 10am to cut morning peak congestion. We did a traffic count on a Friday last November from 9am to 10am. 366 private cars drove into High Street, causing four snarl-ups in Head Street and on North Hill as traffic and buses were gridlocked.
Some correspondents are unaware of the long planning process and positive public consultation some years ago. There was also unanimous support for a carfree High Street from a forum of different transport users, business representatives, local and county councillors.
More people are using the good bus services from all the outlying large villages and towns as well as within the urban area of Colchester. Buses bring over 100,000 people into the town centre every week which benefits our businesses which are doing even better than Ipswich or Chelmsford.
Colchester has many central carparks. Bus and coach users need and deserve their one small bus park interchange in Queen Street, which was granted a legal covenant in the 1960s by the county council for public use for a bus park. It was also featured in the Colchester Transport strategy with a predicted 60% increased bus use.
Yours sincerely,
Paula Whitney, Co-ordinator,
Colchester & NE Essex Friends of the Earth,
4 Shears Crescent, West Mersea.
