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Burford Town Council Traffic Report 2021/22

Annual Town Council ReportsTown Council Reports 2021/22 Uploaded on April 9, 2022

 

BURFORD TOWN COUNCIL

Traffic Committee

Report for year ended 31st March 2022

  1. Once again the year under review has been dominated by HGVs. By now you will all know that Cllr Enright, the OCC Councillor to whom responsibility for making the decision had been delegated, declined to renew the weight limit on HGVs using our High Street. We went through the appeal process without success but it was never likely that the OCC Cabinet would overturn the findings of one of their own.
  2. The one small glimmer of light is the intention of OCC to seek a regional solution to the depredations of HGVs which probably means a weight limit of 18 tonnes rather than 7.5. However, such a solution will require consultation with Gloucestershire County Council as well as all the communities likely to be affected in Oxfordshire, the Road Haulage Association representing the hauliers, the hauliers themselves and county-wide businesses. Previous attempts at such a solution failed dismally because they were not made legally enforceable so the hauliers ignored them! Our current efforts are aimed at getting an enforceable limit in Barns Lane and Tanners Lane and trying to force the pace of the “regional solution”.We persuaded OCC to grant us a town-wide 20 mph speed limit. No sooner had we done so than OCC announced that all communities like ours in the county should have a 20 mph limit – once again Burford leads! Private donations enabled us to install an electronic warning sign at the top of The Hill which seems to be proving effective.
  3. We supported The Burford & District Society in its successful campaign to have the pavement on the West side of the High Street raised and repaired where necessary. Mobility scooters, buggies, zimmer frames and geriatric ex-Mayors can now navigate substantial lengths of the pavement above and below the pedestrian crossing in relative safety.
  4. Finally, we are turning our attention to the footway over the bridge. To say that it is dangerous, is merely to state the blindingly obvious. It was only slightly less so when HGVs were restricted to 7.5 tonnes, now they are back to 44 tonnes with the Government threatening to allow them to be even heavier and longer, the plight of Mums bringing their children over the bridge to the Primary School is heart stopping! OCC has agreed to repaint the white line but a strip of Dulux will not keep an artic at bay. We need a kerb or bollards and those are for what we will be fighting.

John White

Chair – Traffic Committee

April 2022