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A1101 Public Meeting & Polling Scares
November 24th, 2009
A1101 Public Meeting
I’ve just come back from the A1101 Action Group’s Public Meeting in Tydd St. Giles. It was called to discuss the ongoing situation on the road and its blackspot, the options for the future, and to some extent to let local folk air their frustration, anger and sadness over the matter.
I have to admit to being a little disappointed to not be given a place at the table with the other speakers and politicians. I am, after all, the County Councillor for the division. Nor is there anybody else who was sat there (other than the Action Group themselves) who have worked as consistently on this issue as I have. But to be honest, given the grilling the council representatives who were sat at the table got I think, maybe, I’m glad to have been sitting in the audience.
There were many notables present. Representatives of the police, air ambulance and fire service. Deputy Leader of the County Council Mac McGuire. Council officer Amanda Mays. Cllr. Simon King - chairman of the Area Joint Committee for Highways. In the audience I saw Town Cllr. Sam Hoy, District Councillors Humphreys, Hatton and Wheeler, loads of Parish Councillors, Graham Chappell of the Fenland Road Safety Campaign, John Smith – organiser of the Wisbech Dawn Chorus event and Grantgetters project. It was a veritable who’s who of the area.
Overall, I think it was a productive meeting. I’m not sure I would have handled it quite the same way the Action Group did, but nevertheless I’m sure that Cllr. Mac McGuire (Council Cabinet Portfolio Holder for Highways) and Amanda Mays (Council Highways Officer) got the message that the public feel very strongly about this.
Mr. Proctor, the local farmer, very reasonably offered to cut back his trees and got a round of applause for his helpful attitude. Cllr McGuire indicated that he would support the road widening proposal at Cabinet level and that it would be made the Number One priority on the minor highways bids. All good stuff, but the audience were incensed and pressed for more.
What came across particularly powerfully was the public anger that everything takes so long. Too many committees, too much bureaucracy, too much red tape and regulation dragging everything on week after week, month after month, year after year. I agree with them, but this isn’t a County Council issue. This is a problem the whole country has. It’s a problem caused by Big Government who want to control and legislate everything top down, where every decision requires a thousand preparatory case files and any conclusion can be countered by some unelected official, body or organisation.
I felt that the audience were a little tough on the council representatives. They had taken the time during the evening to come and listen and join the debate. This isn’t a sign of callous or disinterested people, it is a sign of folk who care. In many ways their hands are also tied by the system. But it would be fair also to say that between them they do have the power to make things happen. Given their comments, I think they have a mind to do just that. Which has got to be a good thing!
We have come away from the meeting with some options and some direction for the future. The Action Group now have some thinking to do about whether we continue to push for the full road widening, or ask for a reconsideration for another plan involving cameras and a 40MPH speed limit. It was made pretty clear that the money just is not there for both. I will go to the Cabinet Meeting and to the Full Council meeting and argue for whatever the concensus is. But this needs to be the right decision, because taking the wrong path here could set us back a long way in our campaign to make the road safe.
Polling Scares
The weekend poll which reduced the Conservative lead over Labour to 6% was widely denounced as a rogue by fellow Conservatives, but I’m pretty sure there were sweaty brows everywhere. My own opinion was that we were seeing some dropoff due to the Europe situation and that Labour were seeing a brief gain due to sympathy for Gordon Brown over The Sun ”PhoneGate” escapade. Still, we all hoped this was just a dodgy polling, given that it featured a very small voting sample.
Today, Angus Reid’s new poll for Political Betting will make happy reading for CCHQ and unhappy reading for the socialists.
CON 39%(previously 38)
LAB 22%(previously 24)
LD 21%(previously 20)
OTHERS 18% (18)
Interesting, huh?
There are two notable things about this poll.
The first is obviously that it gives the Conservatives a powerful 17% lead. We’re talking between 90 and 150 Majority if that were matched at a general election.
The second notable thing is that it puts Labour only 1% above the Liberal Democrats. A little more of Gordon Brown’s magic and Labour will cease to be a force in the UK entirely, replaced by the Lib Dems.
3 Responses to “A1101 Public Meeting & Polling Scares”
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Don’t know if you’ve seen the recent speed survey which shows where ’sinners and saints’ drive:-
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn_news_elynews/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=465526
but the map of Cambridgeshire only extends as far North as Somersham. Rather appears that they’ve forgotten about Fenland. But didn’t we know that anyway ?
Sounds like a boring night out.
Moderator (Steve Tierney)’s Response: I don’t think the point was for it to be entertaining, Ms Betty. Informative and persuasive were the aims.
Dear Steve,
Having attended the A1101 Public Meeting, I want to thank you again, Steve for the strength of your interest in, and determination to support, the achievement of a successful outcome to the A1101 Campaign.
The monumental effort and tireless dedication of the A1101 Blackspot Team was plain for all to see, as was the passion and frustration of so many local people who have been bereaved, traumatised, distressed and angered by the continuing disaster unfolding on this notorious stretch of road.
In some ways, I believe the outpouring of raw emotion and frustration had to happen. Opportunities for those most affected by road tragedies to really let Highways Officers and senior Council Members know what they think, feel, and want to happen to protect others from similar suffering, seem, in my experience to be far and few between, and may even be systematically avoided.
This is a great shame as, however difficult it may be for the Council Officers and Members to hear, it is often very helpful to those suffering loss or trauma to have that chance to express their anguish and views on how things could be improved.
The experience of actually being ‘heard’, by those who have the power to make a difference for others in the future, is not only cathartic but a significant aid to coming to terms with what has happened, as far as this may be possible. It can also give substance to real hope for the wider community in which we live.
It is a testament to the achievement of the A1101 Team, so far, that they managed to enable this to happen in the way that they did last night.
The courage of so many of those who have lost loved ones in attending and speaking last night also needs to be acknowledged. Sadly, for some it proved too much too soon, but others, who have carried their pain for longer were able to give their testimony with great dignity and powerful impact.
The courage of the Council representatives in coming to support the meeting must also be acknowledged. This is what we want from them, to engage as constructively and sympathetically as they can, to be dedicated, positive and creative in their efforts to find and apply solutions to the combination of environmental and driver behavioural problems present at Blackspots such as the A1101, to tell us the truth about what they can and cannot do, and to share our concern that what can be done, should be done, as soon as can be managed.
They have a whole county to be worrying about and to an extent it is necessary that those with more intimate knowledge of a locality have to do some of the work of raising awareness of specific local problems and this is why action groups such as the A1101 Team are so vital to the process, though it does beg the question, ‘what is the role of the District Traffic Engineers and Officers, who might also have been able to inform senior colleagues at Shire Hall of the significant issues in their area, more persuasively and effectively than seems to have been the case with the A1101 and many other issues associated with roads, particularly in Fenland’?.
It has taken an inordinately long time for the A1101 to be taken seriously enough for meaningful remedial action to be taken, as it has with the notorious river roads, and we still have a primary school in Guyhirn where the speed limit on the adjacent road is 40mph.
There is a long way to go if the improvement seen in the rate of road fatalities elsewhere in the county is to happen in Fenland.
Thanks, very largely, to the efforts of local campaigners, the good things that we know our County Council Officers and Members are able to do, are beginning to happen on the river roads, and are tantalisingly close to happening on the A1101, nevertheless, the experience with the average camera system for the Forty Foot Bank, which was approved in County Council Cabinet in December 2006 but is still not installed, should be remembered.
With any major scheme there can be substantial delays. Even if the A1101 proposals are implemented to the September 2010 time-scale suggested by Chief Engineer, Amanda Mays, without further interim measures being undertaken to tackle the problems known to exist at this Blackspot, there is a real and high risk of further fatalities occurring before then.
They did try, with the red warning signs and road surface treatments, but clearly these are not effective enough at this location.
The farmer’s offer to improve visibility by relocating the ‘windbreak’ provided by the trees on the bend and
his clear statement of intent to do whatever he could to help, were both a relief and an inspiration, and rightly applauded at the meeting.
I hope that his sense of urgency about the need to do something that can make a real difference, now, whilst other more complex measures undergo ‘due process’ of unknowable length, will be shared by those within the County Council, who have the power to act, and that we will not be left wondering in a year or more’s time, why something effective was not done, since we met on November 23rd 2009, to prevent the further accidents and deaths that followed.
Graham Chappell
Organiser
Fenland Road Safety Campaign (Charlotte’s Way)