John Tenconi, WRA Chairman and Jonathan Hulley, Surrey County Councillor & Deputy Cabinet Member of Strategic Highways discuss local government changes and the implementation of a countywide Vision Zero Road Safety strategy and a new 20mph speed reduction policy which will apply to areas like Virginia Water in identifying roads where speed reduction is needed to reduce road fatalities and injuries.
The WRA has worked closely with local councillors and traffic consultants to progress these issues and are pleased to announce the following actions:
Implementation of a 30mph speed limit on Callow Hill and Bakeham Lane by March 2025
Speed surveys on Wellington Avenue and Christchurch Road will begin in September
Progress project to address speeding and safety concerns outside Manor Mead School on Christchurch Road
Complete scheduled vegetation clearance work identified by WRA traffic consultants
JT: We’ve been working together in our community roles for many years however, I’d like you to give a little background about your elected position and professional expertise.
JH: I’m very proud to be a relatively long-standing member of the Virginia Water community since 2009. I was elected for the first time to Runnymede Borough Council in 2019 and have found the responsibilities and the experience of representing our community challenging at times, but very rewarding. I’ve worked closely with a number of resident’s associations, including the Wentworth Residents Association, who do fantastic work. In 2021, I was elected to Surrey County Council (SCC) and in May this year, I joined the cabinet responsible for strategic highway policy, which includes the new speed reduction strategy, which we'll be talking about today.
JT: You're very well qualified on these matters and have an impressive career as a lawyer.
JH: Yes, I'm also a lawyer and have spent 20 years supporting public landlords, both local authorities and housing associations, to build the affordable homes we need in this country. I’m a partner and head of the social housing team at Birketts LLP, who are a top 50 law firm.
JT: The Visions Zero Road Safety policy has been announced which is welcomed news and supports the significant work that has been undertaken to mitigate our neighbourhood traffic. What does this countywide policy mean for residents?
JH: The tragedy is that, of all the counties in this country, Surrey sees an unacceptably high level of deaths and injuries on our roads. I was with a group of residents on Stroude Road last month who reminded me of two very serious accidents that took place very recently. And this year, there have been two deaths on Callow Hill, which is shocking and unacceptable.
Surrey County Council has recently developed a two-strand policy to reduce speeding and increase safety. What this provides is an opportunity to identify roads in Virginia Water where we know the speed limit is too high and then to nominate those roads for a technical speed assessment exercise. And then, with the support of the community and resident associations like the WRA, we can implement lower speed limits.
JT: There are roads that we really need to focus our attention on as a priority. Can you highlight these and explain our progress?
JH: Absolutely. Callow Hill is one of them, and already through steps that I've taken with my neighbour, Marissa Heath, who is County Councillor for Englefield Green, we are progressing a project that will reduce speed on that road and Bakeham Lane to 30mph by March 2025. Appropriate mitigation measures will be in place with new signs, including those that flash if you're traveling more than the new speed limit.
I know that this is something that the WRA have long fought for, and I have taken their support and their input carefully into account in pushing ahead with this project.
Other roads are Wellington Avenue and Christchurch Road. Both will be nominated for reduced speed limits with the support of the WRA and the Virginia Water Neighbourhood Plan forum. The first practical step of the exercise is a speed assessment, which will be undertaken in September. This is the first step in assessing the extent to which speed is an issue, and I believe it is, but we need to get the data first.
JT: Well, that's fantastic. And in terms of other improvements, like the vegetation clearance, that's also been raised with SCC. Will we see that the verges are going to be taken care of as part of this exercise. Is that right?
JH: Absolutely. And thanks to the WRA who have been superb in providing a lot of information about where vegetation should be cut back to improve line of sight and the aesthetics of our village. I’ve reported this to the Surrey Highways Agency, and they have confirmed that action will be taken soon.
JT: I'd like to add that our relationship with our councillors and county councillors has been serendipitous. I don't know if you'll remember you and I met up, probably for the first time in 2017 and we discussed the local plan, which the WRA was much engaged with for Longcross and at the time we were starting on the Neighbourhood Plan. You were extremely interested in this, and much to my surprise, immediately got involved by standing for the council and getting elected. And I must say, I sometimes feel a little guilty that I might have set you on this very onerous path, but it's certainly been a great boon to the residents.
I suppose by further background, starting with the local plan, which brought 2,000 new houses to the area, the WRA has always maintained that the difficulty is infrastructure. We're not against having new houses in the area. Of course, we understand the need. What we are distressed about is the lack of infrastructure to support that.
And we've been very well supported by you, Jonathan, and your colleague, Chris Howarth. You’ve both been involved in our work on the Longcross applications and subsequent planning applications that we've been addressing, such as Virginia Water South, Bridge Lane, Kenwolde, and the car wash business on Wellington Avenue.
However, we are particularly concerned with pedestrian safety, as well as active and sustainable travel. So, once those 30mph limits are in place, will they be monitored? And if there is not enough compliance will further mitigation occur to enforce it?
JH: As a result of the work the WRA commissioned from PGA, well known traffic consultants, we have detailed material that the County Council can have proper regard. But of course, everything costs money, so funding must be found, but I am confident that we will find the funding we need to deliver this.
JT: We've done all of this in hand in hand with the Neighbourhood Plan because we very much hope that once we start to get money from Community Infrastructure Levy, we will be able to support some of the mitigation work that the council may not be able to fund. So, it's a dovetailing of activity.
So, what would you say are the next steps?
JH: Well, certainly the speed reduction policy is designed to simplify the steps to lower speed limits on our roads. So essentially, once the speed assessment data has been gathered, it’s studied by the WRA, myself and the traffic engineers to determine what that new speed should be, and what mitigation measures need to be in place to ensure that the new speed limit is appropriately enforced.
The new policy promotes more 20mph speed limits, including near schools and shopping precincts, provided these measures are supported the local community and county councillor.
Once the data is gathered, there's a formal nomination exercise with the support of residents to take steps towards a new speed limit on a particular road. We will engage with residents through a formal consultation because we must make sure that the local public wants a lower speed limit on that road.
JT: Fantastic. And what's your vision then? What can we expect in the future?
JH: I would like to see the current 40mph limit on Wellington Avenue and Christchurch Road reduced to 30mph, which will then align nicely with a new 30mph limit on Callow Hill, Bakeham Lane and Stroude Road. I would also like to see a 20mph zones such as, outside our schools.
My vision would be a network of roads in Virginia Water that have speed limits of 30mph and no more.
JT: There is also quite a big armoury of additional measures, if necessary, in the schedule prepared by our traffic management consultants. For instance, visual narrowing of the road can be created without moving the pavements at all. Just by changing the colours of the road, by putting arrows onto them can impact the motorist psyche to slow down.
We'd like to encourage active and safe travel. We would like to see pedestrian crossings going in in several places where there are dangerous bends and turnings. This would then, if you like, protect the core of the village, and would dovetail with the other thing that we've worked on now for some years, which is the routing of construction traffic.
Because heavy lorries bundling through the village is just not very pleasant and inappropriate. They're almost too wide to pass each other on some of our roads, which weren't really designed for them, and they cause the roads to break up continuously, so the council is continuously having to address potholes.
It's all part of the same plan that we have managed to get a pretty reasonable, solid understanding on with Surrey County Council that as far as construction management plans are concerned, they will look to adopt the recommendations that we brought forward from our consultants that will, by and large, route construction lorries and heavy goods vehicles around the M25 and up through Holloway Hill from St Peter's, and not to access sites coming through the core of the village where it can possibly be avoided.
JH: Yes, that's a huge step forward, absolutely. And indeed, in Weybridge, the local County Councillor, Tim Oliver, who is also the leader of Surrey County Council, is running a consultation that seeks to reroute HGV traffic away from Weybridge Town Centre. Perhaps, we might run a similar consultation in Virginia Water.
JT: Is there anything that residents can do? What would be the best way that residents can help?
JH: There's a simple answer to that question. They can join the WRA and help influence decision-making as a member of the association. They can also is support development of the Neighbourhood Plan.