Agenda item - Items referred from Council

To consider items referred from the last meeting of Full Council held on 20 October 2022.

(a)           Petitions

(1)           Speed Bumps Mile Oak Road

(2)           Stop juggernauts using residential roads for driver training in Hangleton Valley

(A)          Petitions

(1)           Speed bumps on Mile Oak Road

41.1      The Committee considered a petition signed by 24 people and referred from the previous Public Engagement Meeting requesting the council put speed bumps on Mile Oak Road to reduce speeding.

41.2      The Chair provided the following response:

“Thank you for organising the petition and I’m sorry to hear about the loss of family pets.

In the past some Local Authorities, including Brighton & Hove City Council, did invest significant sums on large scale traffic calming schemes in an attempt to reduce collisions and the severity of any collisions. Whilst this programme had been successful in many cases the cost to others was not really factored in. This cost was widespread to others including those with disabilities such as neck or back problems either driving, being driven or on public transport experiencing more suffering and the emergency services whose response time are adversely affected negotiating speed tables or humps. The cost of installing and maintaining these measures was also significant and along with other councils we used to spend large amounts on these schemes, however, most of this funding was provided by central government and this money is no longer available to us.

These schemes were prioritised using collision figures that are provided by the Police so the schemes were targeted at areas or single roads that had a high number of collisions that were causing injuries, especially to pedestrians. I am pleased to say that this part of Mile Oak Road has been checked and it has been found that in the past three years there have been no injuries caused by collisions. We know that losing a pet is very traumatic, but I am sorry we cannot take injuries to animals into account as these are not recorded”.

41.3      Councillor Wilkinson moved a motion to request an officer report on the matter.

41.4      Councillor Platts formally seconded the motion.

41.5      The Chair put the motion to the vote that failed.

41.6      Resolved- That the committee note the petition.

(2)           Stop juggernauts using residential roads for driver training in Hangleton Valley

41.7      The Committee considered a petition referred from the previous Public Engagement Meeting requesting the council put in place measures to stop HGV’s using Hangleton Valley.

41.8      The Chair provided the following response:

“I certainly agree this is not acceptable and the only HGV’s using the area should do so for legitimate reasons. It is actually a difficult issue to deal with as there are limited options available for the council to use to try and stop this practise.  While HGV restrictions could be implemented they require significant work and would require lots of signing on all of the entry roads to achieve full coverage.  The second issue is that the Police are responsible for enforcing any such bans and they generally treat traffic offences as a low priority and are actually difficult to enforce as many HGV’s will have a legitimate need to enter the area.  They may be servicing shops, schools or businesses for example.

I have stated previously that any information on the actual companies involved would be extremely helpful and I can then arrange for an officer to contact the companies to try and stop this practise.  This would be my first recommendation rather than going through the expensive and challenging process of trying to ban them when the actual impact will be limited.  As I have stated previously it is likely they would just ignore any such ban”.

41.9      The Chair proposed a motion to request an officer report on the matter that was agreed by the committee.

41.10   Resolved- That the committee receive an officer report responding to the matter.