Tag: traffic

Wiltshire Council “Update” on Northgate Street Lane Closure

Yesterday Wiltshire Council published an “update” on the lane closure on Northgate Street in Devizes as the fire which caused it reaches its first anniversary. Only, it’s more a “reminder” than an “update!”

It begins, “the fire, in November 2024, caused significant damage to the Grade II-listed property and since then the council has had to install a single lane closure to keep people safe. The council recognises the inconvenience this is causing and is committed to reopening the road as soon as possible.” Yeah, knew that bit already.

It continued justifiable, stating “the council has no legal powers to compel the building owner to take further action.” Then the Deputy Leader of Wiltshire Council, Mel Jacob, said how frustrating it all was, and how they were “keen to get the road reopened as soon as we can.” Knew that bit as well.

Fair enough, red tape and all that baloney I get, but the remainder of the information simply says what an inconvenience it’s been, and its impact on the community; who knew that bit?!

 It suggests they’re in talks, but pledges “more positive news on the road early in the new year.” If the word “update” needs replacing with “reminder,” the word “more” here should be swapped out for “some,” for as of yet it seems there isn’t any news about it at all, let alone “positive” news; just some chatting, possibly over tea and cake. You’ve got a new bus shelter, be happy!

But hey, even if I cannot confirm about the tea and cake, it’s 14 sleeps until Santa, so let’s keep our glasses half-full, and hope he miraculously brings a resolution in his sack. For there’s been a few advantages, such as free town centre parking for the most daring and cheeky!

And think of it this way, the serious risk of turning right into Station Road from the mini-roundabout has been lessened by its more consistent usage; it seems now the occasional driver coming from the town direction acknowledges it as a roundabout, actually observes and obeys that technical hitch in the highway code known to others as “the right of way!”

Before all this a right turn there was a white-knuckle ride only for the daredevil stuntman or those on the school run; there were more bumps there than on the road to Potterne.

But one roundabout up into town, immortalised as “The Brewery Roundabout,” has been a fascinating study into levels of human kindness in Devizes. As whilst drivers can exit the Market Place there, there’s no traffic crossing the roundabout in which to allow them their right of way. At peak times this can be challenging and a smidgen annoying. My last count of human kindness, as traffic flows at a snail’s pace from the congested New Park Street, was a fantastic new record of eighteen inconsiderate to one thoughtful driver!

Those in the know about levels of human kindness in Devizes will nip down the Station Road junction from the Market Place, if they wish to ever exit the town westward, and being this road is narrow with parking spaces, it’s become a two-way rat run, whereby the 20mph limit is considered only for “snowflakes.” 

All of which could’ve been avoided if there was a thing called “planning,” whereby Station Road could’ve been reduced to one way coming out of the Market Place, and the single lane from the Brewery roundabout was used for coming into the Market Place. But no worries, because Wiltshire Council are talking about it. It’s not progress, is it? It’s more like poking a dead dog with a stick, hoping it might get up and run.

20’s Plenty Says Devizes Town Councillors

Let’s face facts, they’re not referring to their average age here, are they?! Today’s topic is belting through town like a headless chicken escaping Colonel Sanders. I’ll give credit where it’s due, Gazelle and Herod’s whippersnapper reporter Justin reported the proposal for speed limit reduction from 30 to 20mph in Devizes town centre. And what I’m going to say might shock you, but I’m with the town council on this one……

The crucial article stated Wiltshire Council proposals to create 20mph zones from the A360 from Northgate Street to Long Street, via The Market Place and St John’s Street, as well as other roads in and around the town centre.

It goes on, “the scheme has been supported by members of the town council during consultation, with councillors “pushing for a reduction” for some time,” and quoted Devizes Guardian, Cllr Jonathan Hunter, who believes the change would, “have a positive impact on both road safety and air quality in the town centre.”

Yet, it’s the comment section, yeah, where keyboard warriors usually fire off blanks from their spud-guns, where we find questionable responses. Mostly piffle, as you could imagine, but some raise an eyebrow, so rather than they go unchallenged, I thought I’d point them at Cllr Jonathan Hunter directly.

The only one bang on the money goes under the handle ‘Miker G,’ who, if memory serves me righty had an excruciating 1986 chart-topper with DJ Sven, rapping over Madonna’s Holiday. He gives it, “I’d love to know how to get through Devizes going as fast as 20mph;” Showstopper! Nice one Mike, for no matter how you ring-reng-a-dong for a holiday, you’ll probably only get as far as Ocean City on New Park Street! The others left their sense of humour behind, let’s concentrate on them.

Award for the most ill-informed goes to ‘Synical Sam,’ without getting cynical I’m presuming he means cynical, and he called out Jonathan as a liar, twice in the same sentence! “Tell the truth Cllr,” he suggested, “it is a cash cow, we all know it so tell the truth.”

Using caps lock I think I can handle this one lone. Jonathan is a TOWN COUNCILLOR, and the TOWN COUNCIL do NOT get revenue from speeding fines, silly sausage! “I have zero connection with Wilshire Council,” Jonathan confirmed, “I’m not involved in any of the actual decision making. It’s just the fact we’re applauding it. We’re a local group, saying we’d like to see this in more areas. The fact people are thinking Wiltshire Council are gonna suddenly put cameras on to try and get revenue is just an absolute ridiculous myth!”

Even if, as I did waffle on the idea, using St Edith’s Marsh’s 30mph as a shiny example where they love to sit masticating on onion bhajis, the police can rock up on the day of the changes and hand out tickets like nightclub owners hand out flyers, Devizes Town Council won’t get so much as a bite of their samosa. Jonathan dismissed it promptly. “The police would have to comment on that, that’s not a council affair.” Though it opened a Pandora’s box on the way he envisioned those who accidently went over the speed reductions should be handled. “Anybody can make a mistake and we should have a tolerant society; we shouldn’t have a forensic kind of measurement of everything we do.”

It’s the environmental issue we need dwell, the only rational point in the comments. Ingeniously named ‘Newsfan’ typed, “for my layman’s, unscientific mind, please tell me how air quality is improved by vehicles crawling through at 20mph. Especially as this will more than likely mean being in at least 3rd gear if not lower. I’m sorry but the pedestrian is not King no matter how much you penalise the motorists or quote ‘green improvements’.”

This made me ponder if there was any truth in this, though Miker G might rap it matters not, getting up to 20mph in Devizes town centre is a dream. In response ‘Jimmy Hilly’ took from an extensive study by TFL, “20mph zones do not appear to worsen air quality and they dramatically reduce road danger. They also support a shift to walking and cycling, generate less traffic noise and reduce community severance.”

Jonathan dismissed it too, and we’ve fact-checked what he says with Sustainable Devizes. “I think there’s a lot of people, you know, sat somewhere on a keyboard with some made-up kind of human knowledge about whatever, without any facts, and you know, it’s life isn’t it? Life is full of lots of different views. The scientific facts for drivers of internal combustion engine powered vehicles are the more you press that accelerator the more fuel you will burn, the more emissions that you will create, obviously. The more environmentally friendly the vehicle is, as in its CO2 emissions are lower the less impact that will have, but even going from 30 to 20 is significant. When you multiply that by X amount of thousands of cars going through Devizes or wherever it happens to be……”

“We’ve a constrained traffic situation and not helped by the fact if you want to go to Salisbury or Andover or Swindon, you’ve gotta go through Devizes. It’s a mediaeval town and 21st century traffic, but if, and this is the point I made in The Gazette, if everything is in sync, if everything is going to 30, it doesn’t make any difference if everything’s going to 20. Because you’re in sync it will have an impact, and obviously on safety as well.”

Twenty, thirty, forty, makes no odds, you will always have spanners who ignore it, but if it makes the average moralistic motorist slow it can be no bad thing. Once the twenty limit is normalised, as it already is across many other towns and villages locally, you won’t contemplate it, as was the backlash against drink driving rules or seatbelts in the eighties; watch this video, redneck! How bizarre in reflection, and if boy racers complain about a meagre ten-mph reduction after some time, your argument will seem as absurd.

Twenty is plenty, get used to it, and climate change denialists, you should want to slow down; too fast on a disc-shaped planet and you’ll drive straight over the edge… do us all a favour!!

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No Surprises Living in Devizes: Conkers or Bonkers?

Around this season in years gone by, kids yielding nailed planks and discarded house-bricks gathered in the suburban scrapheap where I grew up. No, it wasn’t something as vicious as a rival school skirmish, that would’ve been later in the term. They congregated unsupervised at the aptly named Chestnut Crescent, to lob items into trees.

 

The parameters of health and safety would’ve been a call to “watch out,” while children launched said items, wrecked go-karts and toddlers airborne. Those who dared scramble the shelling zone would collect spoils the big kids disregarded. There was no more order then this; if you were hit you learned a lesson, for the sake of conkers.

 

 

Next day my Dad would search his shed for his screwdriver, while mum was adamant she wouldn’t put the cooker on just to bake conkers. But, mention the game to kids these days, they’d probably search Google Play-Store on their tablets; “nope Dad, no such game exists; you’re making it up.”

 

Kids don’t play conkers, it’s vanished along with concrete playground floors and triangular shaped flapjack, because we’re health and safety conscious, aren’t we?

 

Yeah right, not while a nation sinks under hurricanes, yet insists “god’s punishing us for electing a Muslim president.” I watched a video on this; Middle Americans witnessed their town submerged, even remarked it’s happening more frequently, awaiting Trump to slip his undercrackers outside his suit, don a cloak and save the day.

 

They really believe climate change is a hoax; the word of a xenophobic, chauvinistic melted figurine of He-Man, who scrapped Obama’s flood protection standards days prior to Harvey, over scientists.

stupid

We’ve gone from conkers to bonkers. What do scientists gain from fibbing? What about crocked politicians in bed with the energy industry? Hum… tricky.

 

That insane trigger-happy President is proof alone we’re far from health and safety conscious, with 6,800 nuclear warheads at his disposal, compared to North Korea’s four; he can’t be trusted with a Twitter account, let alone a nuclear arsenal.

 

“Don’t throw that triangular shaped flapjack son, it might be dangerous.”

 

“Don’t vote for selfish, warmongering pricks Dad, it might be slightly more dangerous.”

 

And we follow them like sheep, desperate for a trade deal because we wanted our cake and to eat it. If Middle Americans believe it, we’re never far behind.

 

So, don’t be giving me H&S assurances, not while we speed like a bat out of hell with blatant disregard, while rotting conkers line pavements and gardens; take this as a metaphoric Brexit remark, or a literal stab that we drive too fast, I’ve overtaken caring; conkers to bonkers, see?

 

From Rotherstone residents rightfully wishing to close their road to cars, to the stretch from Honey Street to Woodbrough being upgraded, existing chicanes outside the school being treated as a challenge rather than a traffic calming measure. It’s called Broad Street, not Brands Hatch. Past tragedies seemingly forgotten, our need to get to work paramount; time is money.

 

We must stop this craziness and slow down, it really is this simple. Why even make a car with a hundred on the clock? Yet, mention an electric car or bike and we quiver; the prospect to skid in a climate change conspiracy theory puddle.

 

Step in Sustainable Devizes, using their (third Saturday) monthly stall in the Shambles yesterday to promote their Next Generation Vehicles Show, to be displayed at the Market Place on Saturday 30th, from 9am to 3pm. Working to reduce the town’s carbon footprint, they invite you to throw off the stigma, come see, and test drive, a large variety of electric vehicles, from hybrid cars to scooters.

susta

Over the winter Sustainable will be hosting a variety of talks at the Quaker Meeting House, starting on 11th October’s discussion on Food Assemblies. Being Devizes is breaking the limit for nitrous oxide emissions, we owe it to the future, rather than continue the current slack attitude; we can’t even be trusted to park responsibly.

 

It’s all fun on the Parking like a Muppet Facebook page, but the shebang appears to have attracted Traffic Wardens on overtime.

 

Once a free-parking day, sparks flew on social media as a photo of a traffic warden who either appeared to be working on a Sunday, or least playing a game on his mobile.

 

Comments roared about changing times. I dispatched an email to Mrs Bilella, processing officer of Wiltshire Council’s parking services, asking why this has suddenly come to pass, being Sunday has always been free to park in Devizes and inquiring about changes; signs don’t display this information.

 

The reply was prompt but vague, “Officers have always worked on Sundays; this has not changed. There will be a consultation soon regarding parking charges, this will be available at libraries, online and local newspapers.”

 

Within the day I asked to be sent the details, but was told, “Please check the website for more details,” which I searched but found nought. I commented on the post, asking the tagged traffic warden if he was merely checking for Muppets, or parking fees had been secretly introduced. I inquired, more importantly, his high score on Snake. But commenting on the post was turned off prior to his reply; I bet Joanne Moore doesn’t have these problems, but she reports, I’m just here to wind you up!

lock

 

So, I’ve no idea what’s what; park like a Muppet and face changing consequences for all I care. More professional whinger, Iain Wallis rightfully ranted it’s, “become a target for raising parking charges where other similar towns pay half what we do, and see no rise. Is it because we’re doing markedly better than other towns? Or is it because we seem to try and stand apart from Wiltshire Council?”

 

Mr Wallis suggested the proposed increase is, “a fudging of the law to allow rural bus route funding, when the road traffic act specifically forbids using parking charges to top up other budgets.” The concern the consultation will affect business in town; no surprises there.

 

Traffic wardens don’t receive fair representation, but I’m not here to set any records straight. Sorry guys, but it’s when you say, “just doing my job sir.” Well don’t; find another job, go cull badgers, or something more productive.

 

Here’s another annoyance; cull puppies too, they bite. No, love puppies, but not badgers; out of sight out of mind. I see them, every morning, they’re my work buddies, with their silly waddles; until, because of our persistence to speed, they’re roadkill.

 

Until we slow down we’re wiping out enough of this beautiful wildlife already, and without sufficient research to prove a cull will cure bovine TB in cattle, we’ve no right to go through with this. Wait for scientist’s reports, or we mirror Middle-Americans, wailing climate change is a hoax while neck deep in flooding.

 

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