| Petition: Zebra Crossing at the top of Ox Lane, Harpenden before the junction with Westfield Road, Sun Lane & Hollybush Lane To introduce a safe zebra crossing, as detailed in the petition heading, to enable all, especially children, young people, elderly, to cross safely at this busy junction. This is a popular route both ways to various schools and it is currently difficult and unsafe to cross here, especially when cars are parked on Westfield Road and Ox Lane. Pedestrians hindering visibility of vehicles approaching (with new electric cars now at times they can't even be heard!) Pedestrians have to rely on drivers allowing them to cross at busy times, during school runs am and pm and rush hour. There are plans for works to be carried out in Ox Lane, it is important to include this in the new road layout. Response Officers have inspected the site and analysed the latest traffic information to fully consider the petitioners’ concerns. In Hertfordshire, we have over 3,000 miles of roads, which include some of the busiest roads in the country. Across the county there are 594 schools where children are educated. Road safety is one of the main concerns of many parents when considering their child's journey to school. In response to national guidance, the Authority has produced, as part of its Local Transport Plan (LTP), the Road Safety Strategy which aims to improve safety for all by minimising the number of collisions and injuries occurring as a result of the transport network. This can be achieved through road safety education and training, safety audits, engineering measures and enforcement. The County Council in partnership with St Albans City and District Council developed an Urban Transport Plan for Harpenden. The purpose of the Plan was to develop a range of schemes and interventions, across all modes of transport, to address existing problems in the area. The Plan identified a number of transport improvement schemes for further consideration over the life of the plan, to help deal with existing and possible future traffic issues; these are then prioritised and developed subject to funding through the Integrated Transport Programme (ITP). Improvements to pedestrian crossing facilities at this junction were not identified as a priority site within the Urban Transport Plan. Our Road Safety Unit monitors collisions and prioritises hazardous sites based on collision history. The five year collision records have been checked and there is one record of a personal injury collision at this location which occurred in March 2013 on the Sun Lane approach to the junction. Sadly this did involve a pupil on the way to or from school and failure to look by both the pedestrian and car driver was identified as a contributing factor. We would of course like to address all road safety issues on our roads; however, because we have limited funding, we have to direct our resources to those areas where our work has the greatest potential to reduce the number and severity of collisions that occur. Taking into consideration that there are a low number of personal injury collisions at this location, it is unlikely this site would attract core funding from the County Council’s annual road safety budget for the foreseeable future. The petition mentions that this is a popular route to school. All schools throughout the County are encouraged to produce and maintain active School Travel Plans, and the County Council's Schools Road Safety Officers can offer to support and provide advice to schools in producing such plans. The School Travel Plan is a document that sets out what improvements can be made in terms of pupils' journeys to and from school, with a particular emphasis placed in shifting the mode of travel to more sustainable means. Where plans identify improvements that might be made to the Highway, funding may be attracted from the County Council’s Safer Routes to Schools program of work. Such requests are ranked and prioritised for works delivery within the programme. This site has not been identified through this process. The works that have been recently carried out in Ox Lane involved resurfacing at this junction. Such works are funded from our core maintenance budgets and other types of works (such as a crossing facility) can only be included if additional funding is secured on a priority basis, and this was not the case for this location. Improvements to the pedestrian route at the other end of Ox Lane were identified in the Harpenden Urban Transport Plan and were carried out earlier this year. We are also aware that St Albans City and District Council have recently extended the double yellow lines at the top of Westfield Road to improve visibility approaching the junction. As such Ox Lane will be added to a list of requests in the Harpenden North East division for possible funding consideration during the 2018/19 budget year, in order that a study of possible crossing options can be completed and used to inform future year budget bids for implementing a crossing facility. Council officers will also discuss this site with the local county councillor, David Williams, to see if the study can be prioritised for funding from the discretionary budget provided by the county council under the Highways Locality Budget scheme, and the outcome of that will be reported to you by the end of this calendar year. |