Your feedback is helping to improve our Low Traffic Area

Lockdown gave us a glimpse of life with less traffic. Quieter, less-polluted roads were widely welcomed. Finding ways to maintain these benefits as we return to normality presents a big challenge.

We’re trialling measures across the borough to make it safer and easier to walk and cycle. We’re preventing traffic from taking short-cuts down known rat-runs. We’ve created space for bikes and pedestrians at key pressure points. We’re preparing for some school drop-off areas to become car-free.

These measures aim to keep people safe, fit and healthy. But they are trials and we are monitoring their impact. We will carry out a full consultation to inform whether these measures should be made permanent, but in the meantime you can give feedback through our Commonplace website.

We have acted on feedback we’ve received already, and will continue to do so. In Lee Green for example, where we have fitted traffic filters (planters and bollards) to stop motorists using smaller residential streets as rat-runs, we are:

• Increasing road signs and making them easier to see in areas where drivers told us the signage wasn’t clear enough, for example in Upwood Road and Woodyates Road.
• Working with Satnav providers to update their systems after motorists told us they had been directed down a road they couldn’t drive through – and then had to make a U-turn in a small, residential street.

We are listening and adapting on an ongoing basis. We are also gathering data to build up a full picture of the impact of the changes. We have baseline measurements on traffic volume and air quality, and are taking comparative measurements.

We will be asking what the findings mean for our residents and local businesses. Our aim is to improve the quality of life for people within all of our neighbourhoods. Receiving feedback is a critical part of making that happen.

To find out more and add your ideas and comments, please go to our Commonplace website.