elephant in the room

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With a decision on the Muller housing development looming it’s time to address the “Elephant in the room”, or in this case the canal bridge.

After we were asked to submit any objections, or letters of support to Cheshire East Planning Department Muller asked for an extension of time to review and re-present certain aspects. A lot of information has been made available to the residents of Audlem regarding the flaws in the application, flaws which CE need to be aware of. We do however need to address the “elephant in the room” which is, I believe, the danger of pedestrians crossing the canal bridge in order to use the amenities Audlem has to offer. It is reasonable to have expected Muller to have used their time extension to consider the dangers and to have presented a way to mitigate the risk to life. It is likely however that they did look at the canal bridge and realised that there is no safe way to protect
pedestrians if the houses are built on this side of the narrow canal bridge. In that case they may have decided to ‘keep their heads down’ and hope nobody notices.

Mullers original submission contained a Traffic Report produced by ‘consultants’ (so it must be good), the Eddison Report was 191 pages long but contained no reference to the way the canal bridge could be safely crossed by foot. The only reference appears to be that Muller would be very generous and put in a dropped kurb with tactile paving (the bumpy type to aid pedestrians with impaired vision). Unfortunately they failed to notice, along with the dangers, that there already exists a dropped kurb and tactile paving. The Eddison Report references the National Planning Framework and it is important to note the following points they raise…

In 3.2.4 page 8 they reference paragraph 116 that says ‘Development should only be prevented or refused on highways grounds if there would be an unacceptable impact on highways safety’.

In 3.2.5 the consultants go on to say, referencing paragraph 117 by advising that, ‘Within this context, applications for development should a) give priority to pedestrians and cycle movement, both within the schema and with neighbouring areas. b) address the needs of people with disabilities and reduced mobility in relation to all modes of transport.

In 3.3.19 the consultants quote from Cheshire East’s Local Plan Strategy Policy D13, Safe Access for pedestrians and cyclists… routes from any new development to the village centre, the village school and any recreational areas must be ensured!!!!

My previous objection contained references to the ‘Streets’ publication that CE use when making decisions. I am not, however, going to get into the trap of bombarding readers with fact overload. This is exactly what it appears Muller have done when you consider the 100’s if not 1000’s of irrelevant pages they have loaded the planning portal with. For example the 192 page Eddison Report and yet no relevant references to the “Elephant in the room”. In fact having had the time to reconsider their application they then add a 21 page, untitled document, that shows ‘Junction Performance’, Surveyed Flows, 2036 (Muller typo) Base without Development Flows (whatever this is), etc, etc…

21 pages of a new submission and still no reference to the canal bridge and pedestrian safety, the “elephant is still in the room” being ignored.

In addition to this weighty document that the planners are expected to digest they also, along with many other documents, submit an ‘Accurate Visual Representation’ which is aimed at addressing previous concerns regarding the visual impact of the development as viewed from the canal. This particular submission shows 23 photos, and, for anyone interested, gives a master class in photography. (No elephants in the photos unfortunately!!!) The master class takes 2 pages to explain that a Canon EOS 6D mk 2, full frame sensor camera was used to take the photo’s. (yes a 6D mk 2, really) They used an f8 aperture on a tripod, very interesting details of the software used are provided, PT Pro specialist panorama software etc, etc. The point here is pages of irrelevant text that does not address the single one moist important issue, the dangers of crossing the canal bridge.

Simple facts:

Muller makes a lot of the development being sustainable due to the close proximity of the amenities, shops, pubs, cafes, chemist, school, village hall, play area, doctors, scout hall, gym, tennis courts etc.

To access the amenities the residents would need to cross the canal bridge and the vast majority would come out of Tollgate Drive along the existing pavement and across the bridge where the pavement is less than half a metre. From a simple observation, (it does not need a 21 page traffic survey, or a 191 consultants report), you can see existing pedestrian behaviour. Pedestrians generally choose not to cross the busy A525 to use the slightly wider pavement on the other side of the bridge. If they did cross they would then need to cross back where further dangers are introduced by traffic coming out of Windmill Drive or exiting from the side of the Bridge Pub in an area where car parking often leads to vehicles mounting the pavement to pass each other. Existing pedestrian behaviour demonstrates this and there is no reason to expect the, lets estimate 300-400 extra pedestrians living in the new houses would do anything different. The danger is clear to see and the volume of traffic will continue to increase. Once built the houses can’t be unbuilt and there is no way Cheshire East can or will widen the bridge.

As the leader of Cheshire East Council, Councillor Manion. recently said: ‘We do have a housing crisis in this country, but I am very concerned about my government’s initial response to tackle that. We do need to build houses but we need the right houses, in the right place, at the right tenure, at the right size, with the right services.

STOP PRESS

As this report was being written Muller have just uploaded another document onto the planning portal. The document shows a plan, produced by their traffic consultants, Eddisons, of the canal bridge and a suggestion that the canal bridge will have a direction priority with traffic leaving the village over the bridge having priority over traffic coming from the Whitchurch direction conceding priority! They also say on the plan that ‘Existing uncontrolled crossing to be upgraded with new tactile and dropped kerbs. Obviously they feel that taking out perfectly good paving and replacing it with shiny new paving will fix the
problem.

It is good that Muller have finally added this plan as it shows that they have recognised the danger and tried to mitigate it. The problem is that it won’t, it will lead to further mayhem with even more traffic backing up past the Coop towards the junction in the centre of the village, (by the church) . With cars coming out of Windmill Drive or approaching from the church end of the village and turning round in Windmill Drive to get to the Coop congestion and the inherent danger will be even worse.

As said earlier, simply standing and watching the crossing for a short while, a few times a day, for a few days will make the risk patently obvious. No need for 191 page reports or 22 page electronic movement surveys. It is clear that pedestrian behaviour is already established and putting up a ‘public footpath finger post’, as suggested by Muller to instruct pedestrians as to what they should do, is not going to fix it. – Muller have now openly acknowledged the danger and Cheshire East must now act.

It’s now time to address the “elephant in the room” and make your feelings known to Cheshire East.