Last Thursday’s TMAP (Traffic Management Advisory Panel) meeting approved a series of new parking restrictions across Reading including 5 in Tilehurst:

1. Junction of Victoria road and Armour Road
2. Junction of Calder Close and Chichester Road
3. Green Acre Mount
4. Junction of Corwen Road and Gratwicke Road
5. Dunstall Close

Along with other local Lib Dems I have spent some time in the weeks before Christmas canvassing opinions form residents living nears to these spots and the overwhelming majority in each case has been in favour of the new restrictions.

These new parking restrictions, following formal approval at Cabinet, will now be incorporated in a TRO (Traffic Regulation Order) and advertised in the press. There is then a few weeks statutary consultation period before the new restrictions can be implemented. This will all take a couple of months but hopefully they will benefit local residnets by deterring parking across driveways (as in Green Acre Mount) or parking where it blocks the view of other cars near junctions.

Excellent news from tonight’s meeting of the Traffic Managment Advisory Panel (TMAP). The meeting approved the go-ahead for a ban on verge and pavement parking along a number of roads in Tilehurst. They even accepted the additional roads suggested by the Tilehurst NAG and the Tilehurst Globe, both of which, in their different ways, have taken a keen interest in traffic issues in Tilehurst. This is the first time that such a ban is being introduced in Reading so we are all keen to see what effect it really has.

TMAP have agreed to push forward a Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) that will ban verge and pavement parking along the following roads:

Westwood Road
Oak Tree Road
School Road
Recreation Road
Churhc End Lane
Lower Elmstone Drive
Brooksby Road (just the bottom end near Overdown Road)
Park Lane
Mayufair
The Meadway
Overdown Road
Norcot Road

This has been a long time coming and as a ward councillor I have received many representations from residents who want to see such a ban come in to effect. It will take a couple of months for the TRO to be published and there will be a formal consultation period before the ban (assuming it is approved) finally comes in.

We all need to take more care of grass verges and not turn them into mud patches and we all need to avoid parking on pavements where the footpath is blocked to pedestrians, mothers with prams and mobility scooters.

Today rail fares are going up (by much more than inflation) as they always do at this time of year. Rail travel in the UK is some 30% more expensive than in neighbouring continental Europe, a legacy of decades of under investment by both Labour and Tory governments. We still travel to London on slam door trains which you have to open from the outside after lowering the door window. Our railway infrastructure is shabby as well as expensive. You try finding a seat on a train from Reading to Paddington between 7:00 and 9:00 on a weekday morning.

In 1997 the new Labour government had the choice of halting privatisation (one of the last acts of the previous Tory administration) or letting it run. It chose the latter and allowed a botched process to carve up the old British Rail empire and make millions for private investors at the expense of the travelling public.

Fifteen years on and with subsidies reducing every year, the train operators are still charging the highest fares in Europe and raising them every year. Yes we can finally see signs of improvement beginning to take shape at Reading station and in three or four years time we may actually see more trains, newer trains and a system that can cope with the numbers of passengers that use it. The sad fact is that it is passengers who will be paying for it all through increased fares.

I have been a regular commuter to London from Reading for many years and yes the timekeeping has improved over those years but we still travelling on trains that were old when I started commuting, most are more than 30 years old today, and rush hour travel is anything but comfortable when you are standing in the aisle for 30 minutes.

I look forward the new Reading station and electric trains on the First Great Western and I also realise that the country’s economic situation precludes any major increase in fare subsidy just now but if we are ever to travel at reasonable costs to get to and from work and get more people out of their cars, then future governments will have to produce more subsidies if trains are going to take the strain.

Last Wednesday I attended a meeting of Tilehurst Globe which discussed improvements for School Road and the area around The Triangle. The meeting was addresed by Simon Beasley, the Traffic Manager at Reading BC. Afterwards we came up with the following proposals which were agreed unanimously.

Tilehurst Globe

TRAFFIC IMPROVEMENT: TILEHURST TRIANGLE

Tilehurst Globe welcomes the initiative to enhance pedestrian safety and improve the environment at Tilehurst Triangle. The Triangle is the shopping hub of Tilehurst Village and in addition to shops it also contains schools, the public library, banks, dentists and cafes. There is a history of traffic accidents with pedestrians in the Triangle and a petition has recently been presented by parents at Park Lane School asking for better pedestrian facilities.

Two other petitions have been presented to TMAP over recent years concerning the lack of a safe crossing over Westwood Road as it enters the Triangle.

The objectives of the changes are to:

1. Improve pedestrian safety.
2. Improve the environment for shoppers and traders.

Our proposals are as follows:

1. 20 mph zone from Park Lane School to the Norcot Road lights, including approximately 100 metres of Westwood Road, Corwen Rd and St Michaels Rd. The 20mph zone to be marked by road surface changes as well as signage.
2. New pedestrian crossing outside Jo-Jos Hairdressers.
3. Replace the current Pelican crossing at the chemist with a pedestrian crossing further north (towards the Norcot Road traffic lights) to better serve the pedestrian desire lines.
4. Railings at Dunstall Close and School Road up to the replacement pedestrian crossing above (to prevent illegal parking blocking School Road).
5. New pedestrian crossing 20 metres down Westwood Road from School Road.
6. New pedestrian crossing outside the Laurels/Public Library.
7. Mitigating measures against speeding through traffic in Westwood Road, Chapel Hill, Oak Tree Road and Overdown, including stopping pavement/verge parking and removing parking restrictions.

These proposals will help reduce traffic speed in the 20 mph zone along the stretch of School Road that includes the shops and schools. The impact of the new pedestrian crossings will be to slow drivers who would otherwise be tempted to put their foot on the pedal. By increasing the number of formal crossings and placing them at the desire lines, pedestrians will be encouraged to use safe crossings rather than attempting to cross the road in opposition to traffic and the pedestrian crossings will also address the needs of parents who have to make the journey between The Laurels and Park Lane Schools. The chief benefit of these changes is to improve pedestrian safety, but the reduction in speeds and the ease of road crossing will enhance the shopping experience. In addition, traffic delays will be reduced through replacing the Pelican by a pedestrian crossing, which require shorter traffic stops.

A key benefit for the schools will be the safer route between the two schools necessitating only one crossing (by JoJo’s).

These Triangle Proposals will impact a number of other roads, including Westwood, Oak Tree, Chapel Hill and Overdown Road, as through traffic may increase as some vehicles divert down these roads in order to avoid the Triangle. The measures of stopping pavement/verge parking and removing parking restrictions already proposed at TMAP will produce informal chicanes, and tend to control speeding. Mandatory chicanes and changes of road surface at specific danger points should be implemented in the future if there is negative impact of the changes in these roads or others in the area.

Potential Problems

In addition to many benefits that these proposals may bring it is fair to point out that the presence of so many zebra crossings over School Road may actually cause blockages of traffic along School Road and that by eliminating pavement parking along Westwood Road we may be causing problems for buses where cars are parked on both sides of the road.

Also, if the Triangle is seen as problematic for through traffic then drivers may well look for alternative routes (Oak Tree and Westwood roads for example) so these need to be considered.

Vodafone have appealed against the decision by West Berks Council to refuse the planning application to build a mast in Dark Lane. We now have until 20 January to send any further comments on to the Planning Inspectorate who will handle the appeal.

This is not good news for residents of Dark Lane and Prince William Drive and marks a departure for Vodafone who did not appeal the two refusals for masts in Lower Elmstone Drive. The proposed mast in Dark Lane is a mere 6 metres high and possibly less of an eyesore than the 14 and 15 metre ones they proposed for Lower Elmstone Drive. Nevertheless this new mast will still stand out like a sore thumb in Dark Lane and they will have to excavate quite a chunk of bank by the end of Prince William Drive to install it.

Fingers crossed that the Planning Inspector agrees with our point of view.

We hear a lot of comments locally and at surgery about the top of Gratwicke Road being blocked every morning as mums drop their kids off to school by the junction with Corwen Road. Well the council have proposed a double yellow line along the inside of the bend in Gratwicke Road from the Corwen Road junction to the first houses. Just along one side and with no loading allowed during the school drop-off and pick-up times.

I spent this evening talking to some of the local residents and most appear to be in favour although they worry about pushing the parking problem further down Gratwicke Road. However the proposal makes sense to just about everybody as a way of keeping the junction clear, maintaining visibility round the bend and keeping Gratwicke Road free for passing traffic.

This will take some time to work its way through council procedures but it does look like an improvement that locals are generally happy with.

There also remains the question of enforcement and whether the council has the means to enforce any new restrictions when it struggles to maintain compliance with existing parking restrictions.

It appears thast Reading Buses are responding to public pressure and planning to run some jouneys on the 33 route up Westwood Glen. This would be a dramatic u-turn on their previous position of saying it served too few passengers and would throw all their new timetables out of joint.

We will wait for further details.

The government’s sudden decision to drastically reduce the FITs from 12 December has come as a real bolt from the blue to the solar panel industry. Up till now the UK had been developing a new, green, industry in the manufacture and installation of solar panels. These panels when fitted on the roofs of houses could provide a large chunk of the house’s domestic electricity needs. But the real bonus comes when during the day the solar panels are producing more electricity than the house needs and it is possible to feed excess electricity in to the national grid and get paid for it via a FIT which is paid direct to the consumer by his electricity supply company. The FIT for a typical householder is currently 43.3p for every kWh (kilowatt hour) of energy sold.

For an average house an outlay of £10,000 is needed to install the solar panels and the payback time is around 8-10 years, after which the solar panels could bring in an income of nearly £1,000 a year net for the remaining years of the scheme which runs for 25 years from installation..
After a slow start the demand for solar panels took off over the last year thanks to the government’s FIT mechanism which made solar panels affordable. The government wanted to boost the take up of solar panels so the FITs were raised temporarily for new installations that completed by 31 March 2012.

Already last summer the government was forced to rain back the FITs for larger installations as they noticed many country landowners were taking advantage of the generous FITs to create large scale solar farms. It produced more income than growing crops. Quite rightly the government did not want to be seen to be subsidising large landowners when the aim of the scheme was to encourage private householders.
However, the government seems to have got cold feet over the amount of subsidy it was paying out to support the FITs, and it has abruptly reduced the FITs from 43.3p to just 21p per kilowatt hour.

Many householders are now uncertain over the eventual returns on their investment as any installations completed after 12 December will only receive the new FITs, leaving them with payback periods extending to 15-20 years and greatly reducing the value of solar panel installation. There is now a real fear that the new rates will put most potential customers right off if they see the length of time it will take to recoup their investment and only a few years at the end of the scheme to reap any substantial benefit.

At a stroke, a new modern green industry has gone into a major panic. Firstly to complete as much work as possible before 12 December but then they face losing many of their potential customers who will be put off by the new FIT levels. Some 20,000 jobs may be at risk if the industry collapses as a result.

Last week I wrote to Tony Page, the Lead Ciouncillor for Transport asking what he was doing about the width restriction on Norcot Road in Tilehurst.

It has been widely reported in the press that the supposed 6′ 6″ gap on the downhill side was in fact only 6′ 4″ wide. Not a huge difference but enough to force hundereds of van drivers to avoid the width restriction by using the adjacent bus lane. THis was never a problem until the council installed a traffic camera to police the bus lane and within weeks hundreds of drivers have been fined for avoiding the width restriction which was actually narrower than it should be.

This is all just another example of the council now actually preying on motorists in order to boost the council’s own finances as my colleague Warren Swaine has already made clear here

Unsurprisingly Cllr Page has been in no hurry to respond and the number of fines just keeps going up and the coun cil cannot even get its width measurements put right.

Joyous news from West Berkshire ! Their Planning Committee has refused Vodafone’s application to install an 11 metre mast in Dark Lane.

Having fought off two previous attempts by Vodafone to install even higher masts along Lower Elmstone Drive I was approached by residents in West Berkshire about this application last month. I (with some help from Lib Dem colleagues) knocked on doors in the area and encouraged residents to respond to the initial ‘consultation’ and then organised a petition when the application was finally tabled.

This is another brilliant result for local residents who do not want intrusive telephone masts in residential areas. Well done to all concerned.

This is the third mast I have had to campaign against, I am probably one of Vodafones least liked customers!