Road closure in Tilehurst over half-term week

There will be a major road closure in Tilehurst next week. The council will be closing the roads at the junction of Corwen Road and Walnut Way to work on drainage issues and to improve the footway crossings. The junction will be closed entirely to undertake the works.

Residents and businesses will need to access The Triangle, Walnut Way, Tyle Road, and Tree Close from St Michaels Road and the ‘No Entry’ restriction on the junction of Walnut Way and St. Michael’s Road will be suspended to allow this.

The road closure will be for five days from 28th October between 09.30 – 16.00 (School Half-Term). Letters are being sent out to affected residents.

Reading Buses have been notified, and will be diverting their affected services.

The New Thames Bridge

Now that the Planning Committee has made its decision to go ahead with the current ‘shared use’ design I can finally make my own views public.

Let me say from the outset that all parties agree on the need for a new bridge over the Thames to serve pedestrians and cyclists and we are all comfortable with the chosen position near the end of Fry’s Island.

Last night I criticised the Labour and Tory view that cyclists and pedestrians could share the new bridge without any separation. My only support came from Melanie Eastwood, the Green councillor and from a band of Reading cyclists who also objected to the current design.

Leaving aside the fact that the bridge design was partly based on a cycle and pedestrian count carried out last July on Reading and Caversham bridges which clearly caused some consternation as it differed widely from Reading Cycle Campaign’s own figures. The council did another count very recently and came up with figures that were double the originals and much closer to RCC’s.
My view is that pedestrians do not feel safe walking in amongst cycles, not all pedestrians are fully mobile and the mixed use would deter them from using the bridge. This will be made much worse as at the southern end of the bridge, cyclists have to make a 900 turn as they come off the bridge on to the ramp. This will cause conflicts between cyclists and pedestrians and the officer’s response that cyclists would all slow down for pedestrians is simply not very re-assuring to people wanting to walk over the bridge with push chairs, toddlers, etc.

The bridge needs to be a little wider and to have a narrow raised kerb to separate the cycles from the walkers. Otherwise we need cyclists to dismount as they are forced to do when using the new subway underneath Reading station.

When it came to the vote the Tories sided with the Labour Administration and only Melanie and myself opposed the planning application.

Slower speeds through wide 20mph limits is the top child protection measure

Children and families are big winners from slower speeds. Wide 20mph limits help parents and children to get around locally. Less danger or parent ‘taxi-duty’ and more walking and cycling means happier, healthier families with extra money to spend.

Child protection should focus more on slower speeds because crashes are the top
avoidable cause of early death or injury for 5-35 year olds. Some children are not allowed to go out without an adult because of fears of being run over. Leading expert Professor Danny Dorling says “roads imprison richer children at home, denying them the freedom to move and are the main sites of killing of poorer children”.

Changing adult driving styles does work. Signing drivers to obey a 20mph limit improves safety – especially if most roads are included. The World Health Organisation say wide area 20mph limits help protect walkers. Public Health body NICE advises 20 mph limits near children. At 20mph the risk of death is 7 times less than 30mph . There is extra time to get out of the way or brake. Just 20% of child casualties happen on school journeys. Yet until recently transport officials had focused on engineering slower speeds with humped, school zones. But, humps are costly. They result in confusing limits. Zones only protect a few hundred metres near schools (about 17% of a school trip). Zones encourage parents to drop off in the “safe area” and then remind them to speed up on leaving it. Wide 20mph limits are better because people who walk or cycle the journey enjoy a 20mph limit throughout the majority of their route. Noise levels fall by 50% too, plus its popular and good for the environment.

The results of protective parents stopping children from going about by themselves are all too clear. Very overweight child numbers are rising. 22% of London’s year 6 children (10/11 year olds) are obese. Body fat is controlled by eating fewer calories and exercise. Exercising one hour daily is recommended for kids, yet with most not allowed to walk or cycle alone due to mum’s and dad’s concerns, few are active enough. Also the focus on obesity is masking rapidly reducing child fitness levels. Nearly half of year 11 pupils (15 year olds) are unfit. This raises the risks of many other health problems such as heart disease.

From 20’s Plenty For Us which campaigns for a 20mph default speed limit in residential streets without physical calming. Web www.20splentyforus.org.uk

Bank overdrafts and payday loans

Full marks to The Independent today for making the point that high street banks often charge as much for short term loans as the payday lenders we have got so worked up about recently.

The article is at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/crack-down-on-overdraft-charges-campaigners-urge-887780

Taking out an unauthorised overdraft for a few weeks can cost as much borrowing the same amount from Wonga or other payday loan companies.

There is, of course. a sane alternative to both high street banks and payday loan companies, it is the Credit Unions. At least with a Credit Union you know you will be charged a fair amount for your loan and that any profit made from loans will go into the business of making more affordable loans to people in financial difficulties. I am a member of Community Savings and Loans, the Berkshire Credit Union, as are many other councillors who also realise that we have a huge task in weaning people off the loan sharks and on to much more equitable loan deals and we need to support our local Credit Unions as much as possible.

Labour’s flaky commitment to affordable housing

Labour’s planning documents which they use to make judgements on planning applications includes a commitment to seek 50% affordable housing on all major developments where more than 15 houses are proposed. It is an excellent target given that not only is there a severe housing shortage in Reading but we have little hope of making inroads in to a council housing waiting list that numbers around 10,000. Given that the population of Reading is approximately 150,000, that is an awfully high number of people and families who are being forced into private rented accommodation, often in poor quality buildings.

So it was with great interest that I read a planning application to do with some minor matters relating to the scheme to rejuvenate the Dee Road Estate. The total scheme calls for the demolition of 376 houses on the site and replacing them with 763 houses and flats. However, even in one of their flagship schemes, the Labour council has only managed to provide 281 affordable homes out of the total of 763 being built. For the mathematicians amongst you, that equates to a measly 37% of the total.

So much for the 50% target that was introduced with fanfares only a year or two ago. Do please write and ask Cllr Page (Lead Councillor for Planning) what has happened to the 50% target which has never been anywhere near met on any major development project that I am aware of.

Pavement resurfacing in Tilehurst

The council will be resurfacing a number of pavements around the town over the next month including two roads in Tilehurst:

Recreation Road – preparation work September 30-October 2 and resurfacing October 17-21

Ogmore Close – preparation work October 2-4 and resurfacing October 24-28

Two further roads in next door Kentwood Ward are also being resurfaced:

Thirlmere Avenue – preparation work September 23-25 and resurfacing October 1-7

Lower Armour Road – preparation work September 25-27 and resurfacing October 11-15

It is always good to see government money being spent on local improvements.

Further Update on Chapel Hill Allotments in Tilehurst

Well I got a response to my suggestion to the Tilehurst Poor’s Land Trust tuning it down flatly on the grounds that they had an endowment of large chunks of land and they would continue to use that, plus the money they held in the bank, to fund their charitable activities. They saw no need to do any fundraising.

Very sad and the allotment holders still face eviction next year even though the Trust may not have secured any planning permission.

I gather that the allotment holders are considering making an offer to buy the land themselves which would be great if they could, but it is a tall ask to raise a considerable amount of cash to make such a purchase.

Update on Chapel Hill Allotments in Tilehurst

I was very pleased to read that Ms Groulef agrees with my views on the proposed sell-off of allotment land on Chapel Hill by the Tilehurst Poor’s Land Trust and I welcome her support but far from joining the fight for allotments as reported in the Post on 31 July, Ms Groulef has simply put a size 10 Labour boot where it is not needed. Despite a picture against a background of well tended allotments Ms Groulef does not appear to have actually met the allotment holders under threat. She has made a snide remark about a Tory councillor, omitting to mention the other trustees (who include the local vicar and other residents). The Trust’s decisions are made by a Board not by individual members. All Ms Groulef has succeeded in doing is further antagonising the trustees and turning a local dispute into a political mud-slinging match. And all for the sake of a photo in the press.
For Ms Groulef’s benefit, the last time Labour put its size 10 boots in to a local dispute with the Trust was over the Kentwood Hill allotments which was nearly 15 years ago. The result was a lot of publicity for the local MP, allotment holders were moved off their plots onto alternative plots elsewhere and significantly, the Kentwood Hill site has remained derelict, benefiting nobody. The only winner was the local publicity hungry MP.

Now I know I represent a different political party but I am doing my best to offer a positive solution to this issue which is essentially about raising money for the Trust’s charitable work (see my recent letter on the subject).

If only politics could be about getting things done to improve communities rather than trading snide remarks. Please Ms Groulef, apologise for singling out Cllr Vickers, and join us in fighting a local campaign to both save the allotments and help raise money for the Trust.

Tilehurst Allotments

Now here is a complicated story that raises its head every few years in Tilehurst.
On one side is the Tilehurst Poors Land Trust, an old established parish charity that provides all sorts of help to local people who have fallen on hard times. And they do a good, and useful, job. It relies on its assets to fund its good works. The assets consist of land (mostl use for allotments plus the Victoria Rec which is leased as a park to the council on a long term lease) and the proceeds of previous land sales all of which allows the trust to provide some £10-12,000 of charity every year. Their only way of increasing their funding for charitable works is to sell off more of the land they still own.
On the other side are the allotment holders who have spent years cultivating their plots to provide sustainable, wholesome, food for themselves and their families.

Some fifteen years ago the trust moved a number of allotment holders off one side of the land at Kentwood Hill and on to vacant plots nearer Armour Hill and Polstead Road. They then proposed to sell the Kentwood Hill land for development and use the proceeds to fund more charitable work. There was uproar in Tilehurst as allotment holders feared the thin end of the wedge and the death of the remaining allotments if they gave way on any of them. There was no thought for increasing the charity’s good works, for building much needed affordable housing in Tilehurst, just an absolute determination to stop any development on allotment land.

And so we have had the same scenario played out between the trust and allotment holders every few years. Currently the trust have abandoned Kentwood Hill (still derelict after all these years) and have given notices to quit to the 7 or 8 plot holders of a small patch of allotments on Chapel Hill, a site which even the trust admit (on their website) would be a very difficult place to develop given the proximity to existing houses.

I cannot see this latest ploy succeeding any more than previous attempts to sell off allotments and the council is in no mood to allow development on such land.
The only way to break the impasse would be for the trust to come to an arrangement with the council and the allotment holders to sell off part of Kentwood Hill (much of which is not suitable for allotments anyway) for development in return for guarantees to retain the other allotments over the long term (perhaps 50 years in to the future). However, this needs sensible discussion between two sides that currently distrust each other.

More on parking in Tilehurst

Well the experimental ban is now in force and the first reports of contraventions are filtering through. I had to laugh at the first report though, it was of the council’s own vans parking on grass verges in Tilehurst. Clearly the council has yet to get the message round to its own staff.

However, the camera van has been seen around Tilehurst and letters should soon be sent out to people who have parked inconsiderately. The council has rightly opted to just write letters to offenders first and only if they don’t take the hint will subsequent offences be punished with a fine.

There is still a lot of concern about parents parking when dropping off children for school in the mornings and when collecting them in the afternoons. Parents’ parking is a real problem for all our local schools, despite yellow lines and 20mph limits, they still park on street corners, across driveways and on the pavement. Clearly there is not room for every parent to park their car close to the school gate at 3:00 in the afternoon but that is no excuse for the inconsiderate parking of quite a few parents.