Council rules out Park and Ride service for Sandleford

But right hand turning from A339 into St Gabriel's School may be on the cards

WEST Berkshire Council says it won’t be providing a park- and-ride service into Newbury town centre when the 2,000- home Sandleford development is completed, because it’s not viable.

After carrying out studies into the idea, the district council doesn’t believe the scheme would work. However, it did say it would consider putting signage on the roundabout by The Swan pub in Newtown to direct traffic down the Newtown straight (B4640), away from Newbury and on to the A34 at Tot Hill.

It also said that it might look at narrowing the A339 northbound to one lane between the Swan roundabout and St Gabriel’s in order to enable traffic to turn right into the school, and said that a pedestrian crossing from the development into the school was also on the cards.

The application for Sandleford, West Berkshire’s largest housing development yet, has been controversial since the outset, with a long debate about how the town would cope with the additional traffic generated by the development, without appropriate mitigation.

The current planning application, which is awaiting approval from West Berkshire Council, is proposing short filter lanes at roundabouts, small improvements to busy junctions and a new roundabout (to replace two mini-roundabouts) at Wash Common, to soften the impact.

These small-scale changes have led to criticism from many residents and concerns of further pollution in the town centre, but Sandleford developer Bloor Homes insists the mitigation will be sufficient.

The idea of an eastern bypass has recently been mooted, and, although the council has not completely ruled out the possibility, it says it is not in its short-term plans.

The question of what the council was doing to mitigate traffic increases was raised again last week when Newbury town councillor John Gardner (Lib Dem, St John’s) asked whether the council would be following the recommendations set out in a transport assessment from WSP Group, published in July 2010, which looked at the likely impact of both the Sandleford and Newbury Racecourse developments.

In reply, council executive member for highways and transport Garth Simpson (Con, Cold Ash), said: “The [Sandleford] application has been submitted with a transport assessment based on more recent traffic surveys that will assess the impact of the development and recommend mitigation to accommodate the additional traffic.

“The TA has yet to be reviewed by highway officers.

“However I can confirm that officers will be looking to implement as much as possible of the Junction Mitigation revised option, which will encourage more traffic to route around the B4640 and the A34.

“Much of this will depend on how negotiations for funding from the developer proceed.

“A priority could be to encourage northbound traffic from the A339 to travel towards the A34 by signage and road markings at the A339/B4640 Swan roundabout, along with reducing the northbound A339 from two lanes from the Swan roundabout to the St Gabriel’s School access.

“This would enable a right- turn facility into the school for safer access, along with the provision of a pedestrian and cycle crossing point for the footpath from Sandleford.

“It is essential that as much as possible is done to reduce the impact of the Sandleford development on the A339 through the centre of Newbury, due to mounting concern regarding traffic congestion and the Air Quality Management Area.”