Safety concerns

What have you done to ensure people’s safety?

We don’t expect the proposals to have a negative impact on road safety. Road Safety Audit (RSA) reports have been and will be, produced by an independent team following reviews at the completion of preliminary and detailed designs, the end of construction, and sometime after opening. These offer numerous opportunities for any problems to be flagged up and addressed.

What evidence is there that this will improve traffic capacity or road safety?

This isn’t a traffic flow improvement scheme. Before the current proposals, other approaches were considered to improve traffic flow but were ruled out. These included:

• A roundabout - but this took land outside the public highway and didn’t provide enough space for pedestrians to move around.
• Various layouts with traffic signals - but these also required land outside the public highway and caused sizable traffic queues in the peak periods.

The scheme also isn’t a safety improvement scheme because, after looking at road collision data for the site, we don’t believe this junction is dangerous. However, during the consultation, it was felt that the area is dominated by vehicle movement and this had to be addressed. As such it was agreed between us, Finchampstead Parish Council, and others with an interest in the scheme that an informal design would be preferred.