| County Council officers have investigated the request raised in the petition for a zebra crossing to be provided in the vicinity of the Chequers/ Chequersfield/ Howlands roundabout. The issue has also been discussed with the local County Councillor.Chequers (A1000) is a main distributor road linking Hatfield and Welwyn Garden City. There are a number of local access roads off the A1000 which are made up of both residential and industrial areas which includes a number of Schools and the QE2 Hospital. The A1000 is subject to a 40mph speed limit while the local access roads are 30mph. There is an existing signalised pedestrian crossing at the northern end Chequers (Broadwater Road roundabout end), and centre islands for 3 crossing points between the 2 roundabouts (between Broadwater Road and Howlands) which allow pedestrians to stop half way whilst crossing. There is a shared pedestrian/ cycle path subway system under the southern (Chequers/ Chequersfield/ Howlands) roundabout linking the Chequersfield estate to the Howlands side of Chequers. All of the County Council’s Highways and Transport related schemes and initiatives are identified through a number of Local Transport Plans, developed with consideration to Hertfordshire County Councils’ Corporate Plan. Therefore all concerns and requested schemes must be able to demonstrate a clear link to the objectives set out in the Local Transport Plans. These objectives include improving road safety and school travel planning. The Police provide the County Council with collision data and our road safety engineering specialists consider all reported personal injury collisions in the County on an annual basis and identify locations at which there are concentrations of reported personal injury collisions. Taking into account the collision history for the entire County, the Council initiates road safety engineering enhancements, on a prioritised basis, where the collision history demonstrates that there are aspects of the road environment that could be modified and/or improved (this could include traffic calming, speed reduction and pedestrian crossing facilities) to reduce the potential for future collisions. The most up to date collision data shows that thankfully Chequers does not have a high personal injury collision history and as such, would not be high priority through the hazard sites list for treatment by the County Council’s safety team. As a result of this, the County Council does not have any current plans within its work programmes to provide a zebra or other form of signalised crossing in Chequers as requested in the petition.However, County Council Officers will continue to liaise with the local County Member to see if any further investigations (such as pedestrian/ vehicle surveys) or minor highway improvements to the area can be funded through the member directed Highways Locality Budget. |