Speeding traffic in Chewton

I have considered very carefully the two sides of the potential road closure issue in Chewton Farm Road in an attempt to consider a measured and long term solution to this problem. Cllr Geary has already expressed his determination to relieve the concerns of the residents and I agree with him that there must be way of dealing with this matter quickly and to the satisfaction to all road users including health and safety agencies. The first issue was the data of 85% average speeds obtained by the traffic speed measuring devices. At 37.4 mph this is totally unacceptable and as promised and following the Community service meeting and as Portfolio holder for a safe and healthy community, I advised the Police (via the Community Safety Action Group) with the request that they urgently undertake camera activity in this area and I can report that this has being done over the last few days and is also going on as I write this blog. Already speeding tickets have been issued and average speeds along this road are being reduced as a result(Police source). I have previously blogged that as traffic increases on our Borough roads we have to revisit the objective of always maintaining traffic flow against pedestrian and other road user priorities and that in the long term that this will be a combination of education and engineering. I also have recorded that when traffic management measures are taken by the police a regrettable proportion of local residents are found among the persons found to be speeding (this is by experience in other ares of the Borough). This is where a process of re-education in driving ability must be linked to driver's penalties. I await with interest to see if this situation is mirrored in the case of Chewton Farm Road. I also await a sensible engineering solution to this area which has the objective of discouraging traffic from using this road as a rat run and speed reductions to 20mph.