Regular readers will know that we have been pushing for a pedestrian crossing in Hullbridge Road , opposite Lubards Farm. Over 200 people signed a petition in a very short time.
There was a local highways panel meeting last week, where all the councillors present were supportive of having a crossing. Trouble is , the County Council had carried out a survey on February 12th, and the results didn’t meet up with the usual council standards for a crossing.
In an 12 hour period , a staggering 10063 vehicles went past this point. That’s one every 4 seconds! And the traffic flow was pretty constant during that period , with a peak between 4 and 5 pm.
However only seven pedestrians crossed the road during those 12 hours.
The view of the councillors present was that people didn’t cross here because it wasn’t safe to do so without a pedestrian crossing. Also the weather was cold and icy and it took an average of 5 seconds to cross the road. Or to put it another way, the survey showed that Rayleigh people are sensible…!
So what to do next? We agreed to keep the funding in place for a crossing. We will also see if we can get a temporary crossing installed, leave it there for a month, and then do another survey. It’s good that Conservatives like Mark Francois, Stephen Castle and Tracy Chapman are working with us on this, and we can bounce ideas off each other. The local highways panel is really starting to work.