Agenda item - Deputations from members of the public.

29.1      The Mayor reported that one deputation had been received from members of the public and invited Ms. Entwistle as the spokesperson for the deputation to come forward and address the council.

29.2      Ms. Entwistle thanked the Mayor and stated that:

“In the middle of August this this year the junction between Hollingbury Road and Upper Hollingdean Road was closed for essential sewage works for a period of 4 weeks. This closure had a substantial positive effect on us, the residents of Hollingbury Rd. Normally Hollingbury Rd carries a lot of through traffic and the absence of this meant that the street became an area of focus for the community.  In that, people began socialising, meeting new neighbours, hanging out in the street and parents allowing their children to play in the street.

A small group of us got together and agreed this change had brought about a positive experience for the residents and after carrying out a more extensive survey of the street (the results of which are included with this deputation) we decided to apply to the council for the permanent closure of Hollingbury Road to non-essential through traffic.  We do not doubt that this will have displacement effects which will impact negatively on residents living on adjacent streets. However, in the main, we believe that most of these can be mitigated by the implementation of traffic calming measures.  We believe this proposal aligns well with Brighton & Hove council’s current transport document in terms of contributing to better safety and health and improving quality of life. There already exists a precedent for closure as set by a nearby road, Hollingbury Park Avenue, a residential side street which also used to be a rat run.  We have identified what we believe are some of the potential negative and positive outcome of the proposed closure and I will outline the main ones here.

Negative outcome includes displacement effects, there are likely to be several displacement effects of closing Hollingbury Road, mainly due to increased traffic flow in neighbouring streets. However, Ditchling Road, which is a main road, and Roedale Road are both fairly wide streets where the impact is likely to be relatively small.

Positive Outcomes include elimination of a rat-run.  Much of the traffic that uses Hollingbury Road does so to short cut the route between Fiveways and Upper Hollingdean Road.  Forcing this traffic onto the wider Ditchling Road would be safer and unlikely to impact negatively on journey times and fuel usage.  

General reduction in accident risk; although the street has recently been provided with pedestrian crossing build-outs, the volume of motor traffic means that this is still not an especially safe road to cross. Vehicles still tend to exceed and accelerate above the 20mph limit between speed ramps and the crossing at the junction with Upper Hollingdean Road which receives a high volume of pedestrian traffic associated with the school run can be quite tricky to navigate when traffic is queuing on the downhill side.  Closure of street will substantially reduce the volume and speed of traffic using the road.

A safe pedestrian route connecting to the Dip. Hollingbury Road provides an important pedestrian route used extensively during the school run. Closure of the road to through-traffic would provide a much safer pedestrian route linking Hollingbury Place to the pelican crossing at the junction of Upper Hollingdean Road and Ditchling Road.  This would encourage more walking, rather than driving to school.

Before I conclude I would like to mention that on a few recent occasions, a neighbour went to observe what the traffic flow was like on Hollingbury Road compared to Ditchling Road which is a main road. After several minutes’ observation on both of these roads, it was found that whilst Hollingbury Road was backed up along the street with through traffic, there were fairly few cars on Ditchling road.

In view of the evidence we have presented, the result of the street survey and of an ongoing petition with 117 signatures to date that we submit here with this deputation, we ask the council to explore with us the possibilities of a permanent closure of Hollingbury Road to non-essential through traffic. 

29.3      Councillor Davey replied,

“I can see that you have looked very carefully at the positive and negative aspects of the proposal.  I commend you all for the extensive work that you’ve done.  As you are clearly aware, closing a road permanently, particularly a through road requires very careful consideration of issues, such as the impact on the nearby network, legal requirements, and consultation of residents, businesses and road users.

Officers have looked at the traffic impact that is likely to arise from closing Hollingbury Road and have concluded that this would place greater pressure and congestion on adjoining roads on the local network including the dip and Roedale Road as you clearly fully understand.  Then the knock-on effect on residents there would mean changes.  Restricting traffic on any roads brings up diverse opinions both in favour and against as we have found recently, with proposals for traffic restrictions elsewhere.  Despite extensive public consultation on proposals for traffic restrictions, all of which came out in favour. Objections led to a time consuming and expensive public enquiry led by a government inspector and despite a positive result from that, opposition councillors still refused to agree the change. So unfortunately whilst I personally sympathise with residents I am afraid that the Council does not have the resources in terms of officer time and money to embark on what would certainly be a time consuming and expensive process to seek a closure of Hollingbury Road in the foreseeable future so it is not possible at this moment in time to pursue this, but you may be able to continue to work with the local community and the Council to find an agreement in a wider area to anticipate and address what, potentially, the negatives could be.”

29.4      The Mayor thanked Ms. Entwistle for attending the meeting and speaking on behalf of the deputation.  He explained that the points had been noted and the deputation would be referred to Environment, Transport & Sustainability Committee for consideration. The persons forming the deputation would be invited to attend the meeting and would be informed subsequently of any action to be taken or proposed in relation to the matter set out in the deputation.

29.5      The Mayor noted that concluded the item.