Norfolk Park Road latest

I am indebted to Frank Abel who has sent me the notes of a recent meeting about Norfolk Park Road, which I couldn’t get to due to work commitments. The notes follow. It seems The Friends of Norfolk Park and local residents have forced the planners to think again on this one. Well done to all concerned. I still think the first thing to do should be to implement a 20mph speed limit on all residential roads in the area. If you agree with me please e-mail joel.logue@sheffield.gov.uk with your suggestions.

Here are the original plans norfolkparkrdplan

Formal process.

We established we were not too late to have our objections to the proposal considered.  It was expected to go to Council Highways Committee on 14 April and we would be permitted to attend and put our objections then.  However, officers would prefer to respond to our objections beforehand and reflect them in the report from Highways Committee which would go to relevant councillors before the meeting.

The 2009 planning permission for the All Saints development included a condition about highway measures which should be carried out or at least agreed before the new development was occupied, but only mentioned traffic calming for Norfolk Park Road and pedestrian crossing arrangements for Granville Road.

Consultation area

The law allows latitude to authorities over how widely they consult.  Our local councillors could have requested a wider area than the very restricted one where it was carried out.  In retrospect the two officers present agreed it should have been wider.  In fact they had only 57 responses to a questionnaire that had gone to 330 households.  74% of these had been in favour of the proposed 1-way system.  This could in no way be seen as adequate to justify the proposal.

The 1-way proposal

This was based on a Transport Assessment which had considered the road’s collision record and had suggested traffic calming measures but had not proposed a 1-way system.  In fact that assessment had expected the new school to result in only ‘a fairly limited increased generation of traffic’ (6.7).  The officers, who had taken over a consultation begun by others, did not know why the drastic solution of a 1-way system had been proposed on the evidence of that assessment.

There was an extensive discussion of the proposed system and many criticisms put forward, particularly about the extra traffic forced onto Granville Road, already a congested artery, by the 1-way systems not only on Norfolk Park Road but also through the site, exiting onto Granville just above Sheffield City College.

Allowing parking on both sides of the two roads caused major disruption and accident risks on Granville Road and Norfolk Park Road.  There was no answer to residents’ questions as to why this was necessary or desirable.  A proper study was needed of parking needs, since it was strongly suspected that most of those parking on N P Rd were students at the college.  Public transport provision for the college was excellent.  A squeeze on student parking would be good for environmental reasons.

Conclusion

The officers agreed to take up all the matters raised with their superiors and communicate the outcomes to the group through Frank Abel.

FLA 16.3.11