’Welcome’ map for HGV drivers

DRIVERS of heavy goods vehicles have been given the green light to use Henley as a short cut, claim campaigners.

The residents have blamed Oxfordshire County Council, the highways authority, which is drawing up a new transport strategy for the whole county and will be consulting parish councils from next week.

Henley had been designated as “unsuitable” for HGVs on the council’s map of recommended freight routes and campaigners have spent years calling for a 7.5-tonne weight restriction to be placed on the historic bridge to prevent drivers from using the town as a short cut.

But the county council has changed the map so the town is no longer protected and it is pursuing an 18-tonne limit for the wider area. It has appointed engineering and project management consultants Atkins to carry out a study and make recommendations.

Stefan Gawrysiak, Henley’s representative on the council, says this approach has lacked transparency and he fears the town’s historical buildings and layout won’t be taken into account.

He said: “Atkins were actually appointed 12 months ago and we have only just got a final consultation structure.

“I have continually emailed and lobbied officers at the council for some traction and movement, almost to the point of boring myself. It is this lack of transparency in the process that troubles me.

“Atkins must take into account the historical buildings and street layout, dangerous turns, for example Bell Street, and narrow pavements.

“Then there’s pedestrians’ fear of lorries whizzing past them, air quality and the fact that we want Henley to be a walking and cycling town.

“The latest promise is that Atkins are doing automatic number plate recognition surveys. They are looking at the data and in early March begin consulting with parish councils in order to create a report in April.

“The freight strategy map was referred to as the ‘Halcrow map’ after the company that devised it. It was an advisory map but it did have a note saying, ‘No HGVs through Henley’. It literally had a ‘no entry’ sign on it. But when the new map was adopted last year that disappeared and so we could well be open to HGVs coming through willy-nilly. It is the green light for hauliers to trundle through Henley with huge lorries.

“It is wrong of the county council to remove the protection without a new strategy in place. What should be done is decide where the
18-tonne zones are going to be and re-do the map after consultation.”

Air quality campaigner David Dickie agreed that the county council was ignoring alternative ideas.

Speaking at a town council meeting, he said: “I feel they just keep dismissing us rather than listening to us. I don’t feel that any of our points are going to be dealt with and discussed properly.

“Our petition, which raised 2,500 signatures, is being pushed to one side as nimbyism, I think. Air quality they are not discussing at all.

“When I first started getting involved there was a freight map and on it, on Henley Bridge, there was a black cross with the words ‘Not suitable for heavy vehicles’. That cross has been removed. I have asked three times why and I have not yet got a reply.

“What worries me is the hauliers can say, ‘This is where we want to go’. If the cross was still on there, the hauliers would have had to say why they wanted it removed, which would have been a very interesting exercise. Now we have got a fight to get it back on.”

Mr Dickie, who lives in St Katherine’s Road, said he had tripped on kerbstones on the corner of Bell Street and New Street damaged by HGVs and fell into the road. He said: “Getting older makes you
realise how vulnerable one is when walking round the town. Huge HGVs are frightening beasts coming down Bell Street. These vehicles should not be here.”

Mr Dickie suggested the town council should employ a safety expert. He said: “I think we should take the initiative on this one, rather than being on the back foot, and have a safety statement by an expert to put in front of the county council because they are dismissing everything that we say.

“We will fight hard to get Henley what it deserves and the preservation of our beautiful market town.”

Amanda Chumas, who lives in Bell Street, said: “I started the campaign, which was motivated purely by concerns for pedestrian safety and what I see every day from my house.

“Why do the lorries come here? They come here to use the town as a cut-through because we have the bridge and they can go from the M4 to the A34 and vice-versa and probably save about 20 minutes and save fuel. Apart from obtaining a protective environmental weight limit, we fear we are going to be faced with a fait accompli with Henley being declared a recommended HGV route. Lack of transparency, Stefan, that’s probably a bit of an understatement.”

Atkins appeared to be working to a very short timescale.

Ms Chumas said: “How can they take proper soundings, do proper investigations and talk to all the stakeholders involved? We think that you [the town council] need to employ your own independent highways consultant to make a robust case.

“You will not be able to do that if you are only told at the very last minute that you have got a three-week window because where can you find a professional worth their salt to turn on a sixpence and take your case? You can’t. You have to be prepared in advance.” Ms Chumas has compiled a dossier of incidents with photographs which she hopes the council will use to support its case. This includes images of HGVs turning from Bell Street and Northfield End into New Street and mounting the pavements.

She said: “There are significant grounds in addition to safety by erosion and damage to listed buildings, damage to our roads and pavements. Even after the repairs to the road outside Savills you can see damage coming again.”

She said lorries coming through the town at night disturbed people’s sleep while during the day the drivers of 44-tonne vehicles would swing into the path of oncoming traffic, causing a hazard and queues. They also drove over pavements, causing damage.

Ms Chumas said: “I urge you to really get a grip on this otherwise we do fear that we will have a fait accompli and it will be something that we won’t be able to remedy if it is formalised as a by-pass for the M4, which is tacitly what we have now.

“A lot of those vehicles are international vehicles. This is not local traffic, you have got containers, stuff from Portugal, stuff from Poland. There is no objection to what is coming here to deliver, it’s the large stuff that’s just coming through the town because it is a short cut.”

Councillor Ian Reissmann said that in 2002 10 streets in Henley were declared an air quality management area as “dangerous levels” of nitrogen dioxide and particulates had been detected.

He said: “…across England 46,000 people die every year prematurely directly from air pollution that contributed to their early deaths. By my calculation that’s about nine people in Henley every year die as a result of air pollution. HGVs contribute about a third of the pollution in town.” The county council said it had adopted a new freight and logistics strategy as part of the local transport and connectivity plan in July.

In a statement, it said: “The strategy seeks to encourage use of the most appropriate routes, improve safety and encourage the uptake of zero emission vehicles for local freight movements.

“It is recognised that some action will be required to encourage use of appropriate HGV routes. This includes restricting HGV traffic in exceptional circumstances. Traditionally, this has been through point-based restrictions. However, we have found that in many cases this approach does not fully address the issue.

“The strategy therefore made a commitment to explore an area-based approach to weight restrictions. This approach will consider how we can keep HGVs on appropriate routes across larger geographic areas to reduce freight traffic in our towns and villages and stop issues being moved from one road to another.

“Consultants have been appointed to conduct a countywide area weight restriction study. The study is the first step in developing area weight restrictions and will set out an evidence-based approach.

“Data analysis and information from stakeholder engagement will be used to help shape the proposals. Local stakeholder input will be captured through an engagement activity being conducted in March.

“Weight restrictions are implemented through Traffic Regulation Orders and so any proposals identified in the study will be required to go through the statutory process, which includes consultation, before being implemented.”

• Residents can send photos of HGVs coming through the town by email to henleyhgvwatch@gmail.com