Please add your comments on your ideas and possible solutions for the traffic issues faced by Monxton:
- Vehicle Speeding
- Volume of vehicles
- Size of vehicles
Possible ideas/solutions so far include:
- Bollards to protect walls, banks and the village green
- White lines to ‘narrow’ the bridge just north of Monxton Mill, making it one-lane and also safer for pedestrians
- Extend the 30mph zone on Green Lane to after Bryning Lodge and the footpath down to Amport, and further along Broad Lane
- Width restriction zone to restrict vehicles over 6’6″
- Village signs – eg ‘Please drive carefully through our historic village’
- Entrance ‘gates’ at the village boundary, on either side of the road
- A mini roundabout or four-way stop at the crossroads next to the village green
- Mobile Speed Limit Reminder signs/alerting device (to be shared with Amport and Abbotts Ann)
- Adding signs at either end of Chalkpit Lane to advise ‘Unsuitable for HGVs’
- Signs at the traffic lights at the top of Monxton Road to divert lorries up Red Post Lane to go back to Andover Business Park to avoid coming through Monxton – subject to consultation with Red Post Lane and Weyhill residents
- Encouraging all local residents (Monxton, Amport & Grateley) to drive more slowly and with due care and attention through our own villages
Please add your ideas…
Monxton Matters 
Following the recent EGM, I would like to put forward my long standing concerns re traffic issues to the relating specifically western part of the village:
1. The derestriction sign located halfway up the hill should be moved to beyond Bryning Lodge and the two well used footpaths linking the village to Amport and Broad Road. Its current position serves as an additional incentive to speed up at the crossroads, as the exit to the village is `in sight`.
On the occasions I have raised this with TVBC., I have been told that it is located, “ in line with policy criteria”. If this is so, they have interpreted these criteria very differently in relation to most other villages in Test Valley, the majority of which have a considerable gap separating the houses from the start of the speed restriction.
I have never seen any kind of risk assessment, but the road narrows, there is a blind bend and a high bank on one side making it very dangerous indeed for pedestrians.
I have walked my children to school for 8 years, driven daily to Grateley station for 6 years, and walked the dog for 23years along this route, and feel well qualified to comment.
2. Contrary to what was said at the EGM, young men with modified small cars ,(boy racers?), pose a particular problem at certain times of the day, but are by no means the only culprits.
3. The placement of a width restriction at the same location actually had the effect of speeding up traffic leaving the village by giving them right of way, and the cars parked there also create a dangerous blind spot
Some kind of small restriction on the opposite side of the road to create a mild `chicane` could be a help, particularly given the HCC aversion to speed humps
General Issues
4. The Traffic Lights at red Post Bridge cause considerable frustration to many drivers, and lead to bunching, with convoys of several vehicles trying to squeeze through the high street at the same time.
5. I still believe that the biggest threat to the village is the development of the Logistics Park. Ray Alborough seemed quite dismissive of the likely future impact of this on the village, and when repeating his mantra that the same problems affect most villages, he neglected to specify how many “beautiful medieval villages” had suffered the imposition of such a major development, plus the expansion of the DLO, `just down the road`.
It is particularly unfortunate that a measurement of HGV traffic in the area took place shortly after a concerted and effective effort from Pat West and the Parish Council to address what Ray himself described as the COOP`s slack enforcement
6. I agree with many of the points made in the presentation at the EGM, But they did not represent the whole village The issue of speed along the high street was an obvious loser. The speed of traffic is a serious problem on the approaches and exits to the village. The main problem in the high street is lack of a safe footway
ACTION POINTS
1.Move the derestriction sign out of the village
2.Supplement the width restriction
Apologies for the `cobbled together` nature of this letter, but I wanted to put forward some ideas before the next Parish Council meeting.Nick Simons has kindly offered to work together with myself and a friend of his who is a traffic engineer in order to produce a more considered and detailed proposal in due course
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Having looked at the old road bridge at the end of garden ( Andover
direction) and looked at the white markings on the road, it suddenly
occurred to me that these could be changed to allow for pedestrians to cross
on the left, cars cross in the middle, reducing this to one lane only. This
would slow down the traffic and make a safe place for pedestrians to cross
the bridge. The white lines would signify only one lane at a time for cars
crossing the bridge. Ray confirmed this would be possible and white lines
are cheap to put in. He encouraged the suggestion.
2 . The other suggestion I talked over with Pat West depends on how many
children go to Amport School in the Autumn from Monxton. Mothers could get
together and organise a walking crocodile of children with two mothers in
charge one at each end. Pat said that luminous yellow/ green waistcoats
would be available from the council free for mothers and children. This
would reduce the amount of cars taking children to school.
3. The above suggestion for narrowing the bridge, even with white lines,
could put off larger lorries from using the high street as a rat run.
Strangers with large loads might also be put off and persuaded to back up
and turn round at the grain barn entrance and not come any further into the
village.
Jennifer
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The EGM presentation was useful but really only reinforced what we already knew. In my view it was addressing the symptoms of the issue and not the underlying causes and how these might be addressed. These symptoms are fairly obvious and can be addressed by a Traffic Group, (reporting to the PC) , whose task will be to collate, enumerate and evaluate parishioners ideas so that a degree of agreement to the various measures is achieved.
The underlying causes are more difficult to address and need tackling by the PC itself. These underlying causes include the following:
a) Monxton lies on the outskirts of Andover which is regarded by Government as a Development Area both in terms of jobs and homes. The Government will apply increasing pressure on TVBC (carrots and sticks) for this development to continue. As such Andover’s footprint is gradually expanding, getting ever closer to the villages which surround it. The boundary of the A303 has been breached and one can predict that within 20/30 years Abbotts Ann, Monxton and Amport may be virtually an integral part of Andover. (Charlton was once “in the countryside”).
b) the Planning activities are carried out by TVBC where the majority of Borough Councillors are largely based within urban areas with the more rural Borough Councillors (and hence their views) such as ours being outnumbered. ( If you want to see how this operates in practice just see how the new recently approved plans for another logistics park has treated the folk living in Red Post Lane).
On their own the villages will have little impact on the gradual expansion of Andover: the challenge for them is to present a unified, positive, view as to how this can be achieved without having too detrimental an impact on these villages. This will probably mean adopting a longer term approach of influencing TVBC Policies and TVBC Councillors. Ideally the MPC would have one Parish Councillor whose focus was on Planning Matters, not only the assessment of ongoing Planning Applications but also and, more importantly, positively working with TVBC and influencing TVBC Planning Policies in the coming years.
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Your points concerning the underlying causes are very valid and we must ensure our PC is robust enough to tackle them.
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I agree wholeheartedly with every point you make Paul. One has only to look at the way TVBC dismissed a petition of 6500 against the original” Megashed” application and `shaped` policy ,to verify this.
How many Monxton residents were aware of the “Mind the Gap”, campaign at Abbots Ann, and how many actually signed up to it? The outcome will have a direct influence on Monxton. Potential fracking licences at Goodworth Clatford?
If we are to keep our `beautiful medieval village” that Ray referred to at the EGM we must make the most of the influential support offered by Sir George and Pat, and seek wider influence and allies
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Re the signs at the end of Chalkpit Lane, I actually suggested ‘Not suitable for Long Vehicles’ as at Abbots Ann, rather than ‘HGV’s’ as this would restrict our waste disposal vehicles. It is the turning of long vehicles not only at each end of Chalkpit Lane but also particularly at the crossroads by the green that causes problems.
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Following on from a couple of comments: drivers ‘flooring it’ up Green Lane & Jennifer Richards’ look at the bridge on the Andover Road – a thought. To avoid a straight run out of the village in either direction – West and East – might it be possible to have two defiles/traffic calming narrows on each road with alternating priorities rather than the existing singletons on each road. So for example on Green Lane a second defile lower down the hill and closer to Fourway Cross would give priority to traffic entering the village; the exisitng defile gives priority to traffic leaving the village. Likewise on the Andover Road if we moved the current defile to just short of Chalkpit Lane and erected a new priroty sign at the Bridge – with alternating priorites between the two – we would deny evey one a straight run. Just a thought. It just migh hold folk up and make just a little less attractive to speed through our village.
Another thought. Since the High Street is all but a single track road, might it not be worth having such warning signs at: Redpost Lane Railway Bridge and again at the junction with Cattle Lane – where traffic could turn around.
Finally could this thread be given its own headline/drop down menu entry under Highways & Byeways or perhaps the new traffic steering group have one and attach this to it. This thread took some finding.
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Thanks Adrian – I have moved the article so it has a heading under Highways & Byways. ll your comments will be taken into consideration by the Traffic Steering Group. Thanks, Sarah (MPC)
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