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a scheme to stop people mounting the kerb in Wargrave will be made permanent
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Controversial Wargrave road system to be made permanent

By Jon Nurse
January 18, 2013

A controversial road layout to stop drivers mounting the pavement to allow cars to pass them in a narrow village street has been made permanent.

Parking spaces were stripped from Wargrave High Street as part of a trial after a ‘near miss’ when a car drove on the footpath to create space for oncoming traffic.

Despite objections and claims that the new layout was still putting lives at risk, highways boss Keith Baker ruled the experimental laybys had reduced the risk to pedestrians and made the scheme permanent last Tuesday.

The trial, near Manor Cottages, was met with hostility when it started in August 2011, with a 110-signature petition being handed in to the council the following month.

Objectors warned the scheme wasn’t stopping all cases of vehicles mounting the kerb, could increase speeding through the village, and exacerbated the issue of High Street’s lack of parking.

But Cllr Baker, executive member for highways and planning, said: “I’m confident and comfortable we have done everything feasibly possible to minimise the risk.

“Have the issues totally improved as much as I’d like? They never will. Traffic hazards will always be there. But I think we have achieved more than I expected, which is good.”

One High Street resident complained during the scheme: “The increase in safety created by the removal of parking bays is highly subjective.

“This is no Armageddon. We want to maintain Wargrave as a community which is good to live in, not have a High Street where cars and lorries just race through.”

One resident reported her mother was ‘nearly killed’ when a cement truck pulled up beside her.

She said: “Traffic is still driving up the pavement on a daily basis and at a much greater speed than before the parking scheme started.”

Another objector said she felt the scheme had put her children’s lives at risk as she felt it would cause more traffic to travel through the village at speed and encourage larger lorries to use the route.

Cllr Baker added: “We haven’t experienced some of the excesses that were feared by some residents such as increased speeding. We didn’t expect it to because of the nature of the road – but it was a fear.

“There were also concerns they wouldn’t pull in, but I’ve been down there personally and seen that a number of them do.

“Quite a few residents who originally were vocally against the change have said it hasn’t been as bad as they expected.”

Critics of the parking scheme have pointed to other solutions, but Cllr Baker explained that nothing could be done to adjust the height of the pavement and that bollards couldn’t be installed as they would restrict space for prams and mobility scooters.

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#cllr Keith Baker

And your professional highway engineers who have all been to the same universities, read the same books and come up with the same solutions have to be obeyed because they are "Professionals". Professional just means paid to do a job or supply a service. It does not give an automatic right to have your opinion accepted over all others.

As I stated quite clearly. Wargrave is not designed to take the traffic that uses it and until something is done about that nothing will improve the situation. However, the views of the locals who know and live with the problems daily should be taken into account before an outsider who charges a lot of money to give his/her opinion. Sadly we live in a society that is run by political beings who take on remits, that they admit they know nothing about, and then ignore the very people who have to live in these places.

parlovero, Earley
19/01/2013 at 12:53

Parlovera - to answer your question I have no qualifications which is why we employ professional highways engineers to make both recommendations and do the work.

Cllr Keith Baker
19/01/2013 at 10:23

What qualifications in highways and planning does cllr Baker have. More of the same. Council decide they will give something a go, ignore the locals who know the problem better than they, or their "consultants", do. Then say it has been a rip roaring success and quote two people from the whole village who may have agreed with them and go ahead. I use the Wargrave road 4 times a week and the village is not designed for the traffic it has. Until the government force South Oxfordshire to put in a third Reading bridge nothing will change. I doubt the elderly lady who was nearly "Run over" by a cement truck was ever in any danger but it adds to the councillors case.