This is from Chris …
“The new junction at Morland Gardens is poorly designed and dangerous for cyclists.
The picture above shows how the cross-over has been constructed well inside the site access road such that a cyclist, or anyone else, can not see any vehicle turning into the site before said vehicle is on top of them.
This cycle route needs to be improved, not made worse.
I will be cycling along the main road from now on.”
Exactly my thoughts as I cycled past there last week … Well done TW for ruining the only decent section of cycle path on my journey to work.
I’m going to raise it on ‘fix my street’.
Seems to follow the layout for the planning application in 2014. The dropped curb is positioned where it is to line up with the foot/cycle path on the other (south) side which is re-aligned slightly to allow a more tapered road exit splay. I’m not a highways engineer but assume these designs meet national standards for junctions of this nature.
Obviously there are concerns about the visibility of pedestrians/cyclists crossing the road to turning vehicles, and vice versa.
Once all of the temporary fencing and signage seen in the photo has gone a close watch is needed to make sure nothing more permanent is put there to obstruct sight lines.
I agree that it is poorly thought through – no real surprise, given the lack of planning constraints. Cyclists will increasingly abandon the cycle and foot path and take to a 50mph road used by buses and LGVs as well as cars and motorbikes.
This is is a not untypical result of planning being controlled remotely.
I think that eventually the 30 signs will move from Preston Road traffic lights to stonehill turning and that there will be traffic lights at the new Taylor wimpey site !! There are some sort of boxes fitted into the junction !!! If this is true there will be more chaos !! Why aren’t our local councillors doing anything !!!
Completely agree it is poorly designed and highly dangerous – where’s the incentive for cyclists to use the path? Sadly I expect local councillors will have absolutely no sway with the developers, after all, the developer is king in Abingdon.
The Entrance to Morland Gardens is dangerous, full stop! Cars will be turning around in a 50 mile an hour road. However developers get planning permission granted with little or no consideration to traffic it seems to me.
It’s clearly dangerous and as ill thought out as the rest of the development.
Nothing annoys me more than being stuck behind a cyclist on that road as there is not enough room to pass. So in a 50 you end up sat at 15 all the way to Drayton. It’s not the cyclists fault if the path that is supposed to protect them is dangerous and not looked after.
The Abingdon council should be on this, but it seem to me that they couldn’t organise a party at the Loose Cannon!
And where’s the bus stop? 170 houses, poorly thought out entrance location, no proper infrastructure, the Ock street debarkle and all because of one man, take a bow cllr Nimmo Smith!
The Morland Gardens junction is typical of many developments nowadays where a selfish developer seeks to maximise profit from the piece of land it is developing squeezing as many houses in as possible, the inadequate sight lines and tightness of this particular junction point to the fact that the 30 limit will move beyond Oday Hill and the 50 beyond will become a 40.
With proper joined up thinking this new development would have been connected to Lucca Drive via the existing stub of that development and more importantly a roundabout at Stonehill Lane which would provide additional capacity when the inevitable ‘Morland Gardens 2’ development gets the go ahead, of course in that situation the developer would pay for the road development/improvement so really responsibility for the present mess falls at the feet of the local planning authority for not insisting on a better design before approving and of course if at a later point this inadequate junction has to have traffic lights installed the developer will be long gone and our local authority will have to pay the bill so this is a win-win for TW.
Because they are totally powerless; as we all are Guy. it does typify the dire situation we are in, as a community, that we have zero power relating to these matters; and more worryingly, our elected councillors have equally little sway too.
The “fixmystreet” idea is a good one.. Although also likely fruitless, but at least erring on the side of being proactive…and we’re all for that, aren’t we!?
At this junction, either now and/or when the lights, if coming, cause chaos… it might be good if people could make a concerted effort to log it on fixmystreet. Not “add to” any existing logs…but to actually create a brand new one, each time. Eventually, it might, just maybe, start to flag up to someone, somewhere when dozens and dozens of unrectified “faults” are showing on a map. I actually already do this for the double roundabouts at Drayton Rd/Ock Street; for the same reason – and would continue to urge others to do the same if they are equally concerned about the poor traffic management (for this same development) at that junction too.
…something is amiss in Abingdon and its governance. I hope it is rooted out soon…
Is the junction due to have traffic lights on it? I always assumed it would have – then Nimmo-smith can point out the lack of queues at the end of the Drayton road as the queue will have been moved up the road.
Interestingly, the VOWH planning pages only point out that 3rd parties cannot appeal planning decisions. The SouthNorthants page gives a little more, interesting detail.http://www.southnorthants.gov.uk/4090.htm
The fact that many people that want to cycle to work to either Milton, Didcot or Harwell are forced off this road is sad. It should be a lot slower and motor traffic should choose the A34 or be forced to drive slower. It seems there are a lot of options for those wanting to drive a car and contribute to congestion but those wishing to cycle or take a bus are left out.
The planning application plan does show a bus stop to the south of the entrance but only on the Abingdon bound side, nothing on the way out of town. As for traffic lights/ moving speed limit signs….who knows!
At the risk of repeating myself (and upsetting a few) I say again we are being poorly served, here is a development that no one, but no one wanted, ignoring that fact, ignoring the congestion it will produce, ignoring the fact it’s built on the only possible route left for a southern river crossing, and that the local schools will be oversubscribed etc etc it was given permission, what’s democratic about that? do we not have procedures/ vehicles in place to a ensure that the views of a consensus are upheld?
While on the subject of being poorly served I see a two bed apartment in the old police station ( part of the old gaol) is on the market at £500k, another is £400k and the two penthouses went for £900k, that’s almost £2 mill for the developer who we’re told paid just £3 mil for the entire plot, how was that a good deal for us? Why is old Abbey House still boarded up 2 years after the town council was evicted ? ) with a £1 mil sweatener) why was Tylsey park given to Abingdon School? Why is the vale owned Upper Reaches boarded up ? We are being poorly served in that council is not securing the best income from our assets !
I’ve added my comments on fix my street, as has someone else …. Anyone else?
16 Apr 2016 9:37 am
Paulletta
Whilst reading the minutes of the planning meeting, referenced on Abingdon First, I noticed the item re section 106 / Old Gaol. The section 106 contribution from the developer was £1 million, to be paid in instalments of £100,000 in 2015 followed by annual payments of £180,000 for next five years. WHY? The apartments haven’t been sold in instalments, so why did the council agree to this. Surely the full £1 million Should have been paid in full by the developer. I would imagine that £1 million could be used in more useful schemes than a drip feed of money over 5 years?
For what it is worth, full details of the junction scheme can be found on the Vale website under P14/V1196/FUL 24 Jun 2014 in the folder ‘Legal Agreements’. Link to the document is http://www.whitehorsedc.gov.uk/java/support/dynamic_serve.jsp?ID=559417060&CODE=C5067E930A605652B596C0BD6A5758E3
It will be interesting to see the response of OCC to those minded to report this as a ‘highway defect’ as what is being done there simply reflects what the council engineers asked for! Evidently a signalled junction is going to be marginally inconvenient for cyclists who may have to stop and wait – but so it will be for all road users.
GS1948 – Thanks for posting.
I didn’t know the junction was to be light controlled but it does explain the tightness of what’s there now and the poor visibility if it were just a T junction. It’s still all rather inappropriate for the location and could have been done better, that said it is better than some other developments in Abingdon such as the Brewery redevelopment where people who live there are forced to use a junction with almost no visibility to the right when leaving and yet although concerns have been raised with OCC nothing has been done to improve matters.
As a follow up to the above, some of the comments on the topic seem to illustrate how absolutely poor communication has been on local issues like this – to explain to people what is happening and why.
These schemes and legal agreements are not designed on the back of an envelope, they are professionally drawn up and agreed to meet safety and other criteria and to meet the needs of a wider range of users (not just cyclists).
Who should be doing this? Local politicians seem to have gone into hibernation since the general election, not a sight nor sound of them for the PCC election or so far the referendum. There are real opportunities for community engagement here.
I think, whilst they may not be designed on the back of an envelope, it does seem more likely that they are designed with profit first and foremost. How they might “meet” safety and “other criteria” is a problem to be surmounted without affecting the bottom line, wherever possible.
“Other criteria” included that virtually no one could see any rhyme, reason, or sense for this development…yet that was not overcome – merely barged out of the way. But it is good you are fighting their corner GS; you seem to have your head screwed on more than most (myself included).
The communication, equally, hasn’t been poor. The developer met, as in, went up to, and no more, it’s obligations. They didn’t ask what we thought…they just told us what they were going to do. They had an obligation to let us know; so they did.
Faith might, somehow, be partly restored, if the order of things were reversed. For example, if the current traffic was improved BEFROE development then we may have some faith in the developers resect for the community in which it disturbs. If they built the doctors surgeries that served their developments first (to alleviate the current over subscription), we may equally have some faith. If they had built any social housing already…likewise.
But, as it happens, they haven’t done any of this, and I do not trust them to do anything other than what is good for them; and nothing more.
But that is the march of progress….and their profits are no doubt paying in to my miserly private pension…
But I guess it doesn’t matter what happens to the traffic…there are other ways to get to Didcot.
The thing is though, the traffic in Abingdon will never get any better, there will be no southern ring road or new river crossing, Didcot is now the growth town of the area so any improvements will connect that town with the outside world not ours. The unspoken message I get from the council or local government really is put up and shut up, what we have now is the best it’s ever going to be.
It takes two to make a legal agreement and the highways aspects were down to the CC engineers to specify and negotiate what was needed.
The last time you made a ‘legal agreement’, did you volunteer to pay or do more than you needed to?
For what it is worth, the house I live in was built by a ‘greedy developer’ on somebody else’s green field site, albeit 40 plus years ago, and the same goes for quite a few people. Unless you want 100% social housing, that is how houses get built in this country.
We are talking stable doors and horses here. A lot of energy was expended on trying to block this scheme initially and via the Ock Street traffic lights issue.
Not much attention was spent looking at the detailed implications if it went ahead, and trying to improve it at the planning stage when there might have been an opportunity to do so – e.g. perhaps getting the developer to improve the foot/cycle way from Preston Road along the full length of the site. Everything that comes as an apparent surprise to people now was in the public domain at least 2 years ago.
I think there is a lot more greed nowadays (sorry… maximisation of profit) could you see the Tythe Farm development with a green space between itself and the Drayton Road if it were being built today ? Would Grestun Manor off Caldecott Road have a green space at its centre if the land Caldecott House sat on was being developed today, I think not.
Badger I think you are right. Any major new road development is only going to take place at the expense of significant development over and above what is planned now.
The only major roads schemes I see as likely to benefit Abingdon (slightly) are a link up from Didcot to the A4074 bypassing Culham and Clifden Hamden and the possible linking of the A34 directly to the M40 from north of Abingdon – effective an outer Oxford bypass. However don’t expect to see these any time soon.
Very true in that we could still be talking of these new road links 20 years from now just as there was talk of a second river crossing in Abingdon over 40 years ago when I first came here. The talk and promises surrounding the A34 Lodge Hill junction improvements also seem to have gone very quiet, in fact the last I heard was that it might only happen if a truck stop/services/park and ride development is bundled with it.
Badger’s comparison with earlier developments is an interesting one. I think it probably reflected a more proactive approach by the council(s) in those days in planning what were major extensions to the town.It is hard to see the present Vale having anything like the same vision. Much of the land could originally have been Council owned.
The wide grassed areas in Drayton Road also applied on the earlier Council estate Gainsborough Green side and were probably an attempt both to insulate the housing areas from the A34 traffic and also allow scope for future road widening.
Is there really a cycle lane at this junction anyway? Looking at the markings on the pavement it appears to be only 8″ wide.
It is interesting that on the Tithebarn estate (south of Drayton road and built in the 1960s), there is one road on and off the estate, there are no shops and no real community meeting area – liecnsed or otherwise.
I like living there, but it does mean that for many the car is the connection with the outside world. Nobody would have predicted two and more cars per household when the estate was built, and now we add to the daily traffic congestion.
Not much has changed, I think.