South Park Ward concept drawings for permit parking scheme

Green councillors have been working with residents for a number of years to improve road safety and tackle parking problems in the South Park Ward area (bounded by Eastern Avenue, Whiteknights Road, Church Road and Wykeham Road).

Following the council consultation on the idea of permit parking for the area (which showed a majority in favour of investigating permit parking), council transport planners have produced some concept drawings for consultation showing what a permit parking scheme could look like.

We have input into the concept drawings following the meetings we had with residents. Transport planners have taken some of our contributions on board but unfortunately not all of them.

Have a look at your road and the plans for the area and let us know what you think. The plans are in alphabetical order by road name.

The roads on the west of the Wokingham Road all have fairly standard permit parking with shared use (meaning that visitors can come between 8 AM and 8 PM for up to 2 hours without needing a permit).

Many of the roads between Grange Avenue and Wykeham road have a different sort of permit parking (permit parking beyond this point). With this type of permit parking there are no marked bays and you can park on both sides of the road. However you can’t have shared use (where visitors can come at certain times without needing a permit) with this type of permit parking. Therefore all visitors need a visitors’ permit – you get 2 free books but then have to buy more.

The reason for permit parking beyond this point in many of the roads to the east of the Wokingham Road is council transport planners say the roads are too narrow to have bays on both sides and shared use (free visitor parking at certain times of the day). We disagree with this. If you live in the area you may wish to respond to the consultation saying that you want permit parking bays on both sides with shared use.

The council will be running a consultation on the concept drawings to find out what residents think so the scheme can be updated. I will update this blog post with details when I have them.

As we have said before, if a road is opposed to permit parking we will not impose it against the wishes of residents.

We have also produced a short guide on how permit parking works: http://cllrrobwhite.blogspot.com/p/frequently-asked-questions-about.html

Green councillors care about the area and we will keep working with you to improve road safety and tackle parking problems.

Working to tackle queues at the Three Tuns traffic lights

A number of people have contacted me about problems at the 3 Tuns traffic lights creating unnecessary queues of traffic. I have lobbied Wokingham Council on this issue and they are taking some action to improve things.

What do you think? Have things improved at the traffic lights? Full response below.

"Dear Councillor White,

Thank you for your recent letter regarding the traffic lights at the Three Tuns Crossroads in Earley, which has been passed to me for reply.

I have spoken to our traffic signals engineer regarding the timings.  He is aware of issues with these lights and has been working with Siemens to resolve them.  I understand that there are problems with the detectors and that the controller needs upgrading.

Following discussions with Siemens, I understand that the detectors will be replaced on the 5^th of June.  In addition to this, the controller will be upgraded on the 6^th of June.  It is intended to have the controller run MOVA (Microprocessor Optimised Vehicle Actuation), which should help improve the responsiveness of the lights to queues.

It should be noted, however, that while this will significantly improve the situation, it will not eliminate queues entirely.

I hope this helps to answer your query.  However, if you would like further information, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind Regards,".