Traffic Calming
Highway matters, including traffic calming, are largely the responsibility of Buckinghamshire Council (BC), not the Parish Council. Nevertheless, the Parish Council does all it can to improve traffic conditions on the main routes through the village and is always interested to hear suggestions from residents.
The main issues of concern are speeding, the number of heavy freight vehicles, the safety of the multiple junction at the Horse Chestnut tree and damage to roadside infrastructure.
Details on initiatives we have considered or undertaken are provided here.
20mph Speed Limit
This topic was raised at the Annual Village Meeting in April 2023 with the request that the Council investigates the feasibility of implementing a 20mph speed limit throughout the village. An investigation was subsequently carried out and a report produced, the main findings of which were:
- Safety: marginal benefit if any. Most drivers are considerate given the confined nature of the lanes
- Environmental concerns: there is little environmental benefit. In published studies, the reduction in speed limits is accompanied by an environmental deficit
- Signage and expense: new signage would have to be applied for by the Parish Council from Bucks CC and then paid for out of PC funds
- Enforcement: given the infrequent traffic through the lanes, enforcement by means of the Speedwatch team is not expected to be effective
The report was discussed at the July 23 meeting of the Council. In addition to the report, the Council was advised by Bucks County Councillor Nic Brown that:
- The cost of implementing a 20mph speed limit is about £10,000
- There is little support for such initiatives within Bucks Council, for all the reasons above, and it would therefore be extremely difficult to obtain their consent/co-operation.
The Council duly decided not to proceed with the 20mph initiative at this time.
Speedwatch
The Council has registered with a Speedwatch scheme operated by BC. This involves a team of volunteers operating speed guns on loan from BC with the vehicle details of any offenders being passed to the police for a warning to be issued. Speedwatch signs have also been installed at each of the four village entry points.
Speed Indicator Devices
As a further measure, Speed Indicator Devices (SID), which tell drivers how fast they are driving as they enter the village and as they pass the device, have been installed on each of the four village entry roads. They provide both a means of slowing the traffic, and data that can be used to support other initiatives.
Buckinghamshire Freight Strategy Implementation
The PC also continues to support work to implement the Buckinghamshire Council Freight Strategy through participation in various working groups. The objective is to implement County-wide measures that will reduce heavy traffic on all the narrow country roads in this part of Buckinghamshire and consequently reduce such traffic through the village. This work is informed to some extent by the freight traffic surveys mentioned below.
Bucks County Council Freight Strategy
Horse Chestnut Island ('HCI') Junction Re-alignment
The layout of the four-way junction in the middle of the village presents a number of safety issues, encourages speeding through the village and presents an obstacle to large vehicles that frequently results in damage to kerbing, signage and the tree itself.
The Parish Council has for some time been engaged on a project to change the layout to address some of these issues. The work will however be expensive and whilst the Council has allocated some funds towards the cost, we are dependent on securing the bulk of the funding from Buckinghamshire Council to enable the work to proceed. This is inevitably a slow and protracted process.
In 2021 the Council obtained from Bucks Council (BC) Haddenham & Waddesdon Community Board for funding for initial designs for a new junction layout and these were delivered in March 2023. The next stage will be detailed designs and we are working with BC on how this work can be progressed.
Traffic Surveys
Traffic surveys were carried out in 2016 and 2020 to provide evidence of the traffic volumes, especially HGV traffic, passing through the village.