ELLASTONE PARISH COUNCIL TRAFFIC AND HIGHWAYS SURVEY & POLICY

Background

As you may know, Ellastone has a Parish Council which is the lowest tier of local government in the United Kingdom. It is staffed by volunteer Parish Councillors from the village and a salaried professional clerk. The Council has some direct responsibility for village affairs such as gardening but also plays a key role in representing the village on issues of importance to residents. Traffic is one of the most common issues that is brought up at Parish Council meetings. As with many villages in Britain, Ellastone has a busy B-road running through it and with that comes the inevitable problems of high levels of traffic. This is exacerbated by the locality of JCB, Cauldon Low Quarry and Alton Towers Resort, increasing traffic at busy times.

Despite this, our village has a very good accident record with one minor accident recorded since 2020; https://www.staffordshire.gov.uk/Highways/roadsafety/Road accident-information.aspx). We are also very lucky to have a group of volunteers in the village, Community Speedwatch, who play a key role in monitoring traffic and liaising with local police.

The Parish Council has no power over the roads in the village; these are the responsibility of the County Council. However, we regularly liaise with the County Council as well as with the management of Alton Tower Resort and JCB about traffic issues. Over recent years we have had considerable success with our lobbying. For example: the speed limit in the village was reduced from 40 mph to 30 mph; we installed 4 Speed Indicator Devices (funded 50/50 by a JCB grant and the Parish Precept); a pavement was built at the junction of Main Road and Wootton Road, improving road safety; and some restrictions were also placed on Alton Towers traffic to reduce the number of visitors using unsuitable narrow lanes to get to the resort.

However, we continue to have problems with Alton Towers Traffic using Marlpit Lane and Back Lane. There was an unofficial sign at the junction of Marlpit Lane and Main Road advising that there was no access to Alton Towers Resort. This did discourage many drivers from using this route, but unfortunately caused a hazard due to people reversing back onto the main road when they realised there was no access to Alton Towers. The sign has since been removed. In recent months, a resident of the village has begun a new campaign to draw attention to speeding in the village and is lobbying the County Council and other institutions for police enforcement speed cameras to be installed in the village.

Survey

We at the Parish Council are always delighted when members of the community volunteer their own time to make the village safer, but we also want to ensure that any actions taken consider the wider consequences on the community. We therefore commissioned a survey to gain insight into people’s perspectives and to formulate a policy for further traffic improvements in the village.

The survey asked 5 simple questions on how concerned people are about various aspects of traffic and highways in the village and we got 63 responses which is excellent given there are circa 120 dwellings in the village. In each question, a scale of 1-5 was used with 1 being the least level of concern and 5 being the highest level of concern. The respondent was also given the opportunity to write additional comments for each question. The summary results are shown on the page below.

CONCLUSIONS AND PARISH COUNCIL POSITION

As a Parish Council, our key role is to represent the village but it is difficult to fully understand people’s views without speaking to everyone. This survey was the first trial of a new way of engaging with the village and was a big success. The response rate was very high for this type of survey and 86% of respondents said they would like to see surveys like this on other subjects. If you want to see the full detail of the survey responses, a collated document is linked below.

Survey Results

Whilst we do not have any direct control over traffic or highways, we do advocate on behalf of the village and influence those institutions that do have control. As a result of the survey, we have formulated our key policies to be used when interacting with these third parties.

Volume of traffic

We recognise that increasing levels of traffic is an inevitable part of modern society and cannot have a policy that tries to resist the tide. Proposing a bypass is equally unrealistic and would create more problems than it solved. We will therefore focus attention on heavy goods vehicles and work with Cauldon Low Quarry and JCB to see if there is a way to avoid heavy lorries passing through our village.

Speeding

We are concerned about the speed on the roads through the village and are hugely appreciative of all the time and effort made by Community Speed Watch volunteers. This has directly improved safety in our village. However, we are aware that the Police, Highways and the County Council are not in favour of the installation of Speed Cameras in Ellastone. It is clear from feedback that Community Speed Watch does make a difference especially when coupled with mobile police speed camera vans. Our policy is to encourage more volunteers to join Speed Watch and to work with police to encourage more frequent mobile camera vans at known peak times.

Alton Towers Traffic

We clearly have an issue with Alton Towers traffic using Marlpit Lane & Back Lane which has worsened this year. It seems likely that this correlates with the removal of the sign in 2024. Our policy will be to liaise with the Police, County Council and Alton Towers to work with SatNav companies to avoid this route being chosen in their mapping software. We believe it would be helpful to see if we can install official signage to discourage the use of these lanes, and perhaps better signage at the junction of the B5030 and B5031 in Denstone, to make the recommended route clearer to drivers. Also, perhaps the County Council could look again at the original proposals to limit traffic on Marlpit Lane and Back Lane, TRO 3622

Potholes

This is the number #1 issue for residents and we will make that clear to the county council. We will also make them aware of this survey and encourage them to step up their efforts in our village and environs. We will also make special effort to publicise the Staffordshire Report a Pothole website and encourage all village members to do that.

Pedestrian Safety

The key area of focus here is on the road crossing at the bus stops near the Duncombe Arms pub. Our policy will be to raise awareness of this with the county council and to advocate for a pedestrian crossing to be established there. We believe the Marlpit Lane issue will be resolved via the Alton Towers traffic policy.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP?

All of the work in the parish council and with Community Speed Watch relies on volunteers helping with the community. If you feel strongly about any issues in the document, then please take action. Here are two things you can do:

Community Speed Watch

If you were one of the 43% of respondents that answered “5” to the speeding question, then please consider joining the great group of volunteers to help run this organisation and take part in traffic calming events. They are always in need of new helpers.

Email the Speedwatch coordinator on (ellastonespeedwatch@outlook.com)

Pot Holes

If, like us you think that pot holes are a curse on our village and surrounding roads, please make an effort to report any pothole that you become aware of on the Staffordshire Report It website. The more reports, the more likely they will respond quickly.

https://formshighways.staffordshire.gov.uk/homepage/3/report-it---potholes

We hope you found this document useful and now understand the policy of the Parish Council. If you have any other feedback or comments or if you wish to support or join the Parish Council, then please contact us on the following email address or use the feedback QR code or link below.

clerk@ellastoneparishcouncil.gov.uk