My proposals for making Polegate High Street safer

East Sussex Highways,in partnership with East Sussex County Council, is proposing to improve pedestrian and bus stop facilities and introduce a 20mph speed limit along Polegate High Street.

This will be between the A2270 (Wannock Road, Eastbourne Road and A2270) and the B2247 (Station Road/Hailsham Road) junction in Polegate.

The main objective of the scheme (according to a circulated information sheet sent residents) is to make the High Street safer for all users,as well as more attractive to visit.

They propose to drop kerbstones and add tactile paving at corner pavement crossing points.

They have provided a link, which invited locals to comment on the proposals by November 26.

I have submitted my proposals, having been a Polegate resident since June 1990.

I was born in Eastbourne in 1958, and for all but six months of my 40-year 10-month NHS career, worked locally at Eastbourne DGH, and more than 39 years in the operating theatre department as an operating department practitioner, plus a member of the hospital’s resuscitation and trauma teams.

I retired from the NHS in July 2018 where for 22 years I was a lay heath and safety rep and 23 years a lay steward, completing a Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety post retirement, with the TUC.

So having seen the proposals, I’m all for the pavement kerbstones/ tactile paving at corner junctions to roads.

However, money would be better spent if the roads leading to and from the High Street were given signage to reduce speed limits from current 30mph to 20mph as these roads are narrower and mainly consist of residential properties, keeping the High Street at 30mph.

Traffic is currently slowed on a normal day due the railway crossing gates being lowered, as well as by the current pedestrian crossing being in use and obstructions from lorries delivering to the pub, or shops, plus the bus stop outside the Downland Medical Centre is too narrow to allow buses to fully pull in.

Far better would be to move the current Downland Medical Centre bus stop and relocate it at the same side of road, but prior to the railway line, while increasing the width of current lay-by to allow a safe pull-in/exit for bus drivers.

The current lay-by outside the doctors could be instead used for an ambulance bay, plus disabled parking/ drop-off/collecting point for patients.

There are two bus stops in either direction of travel within 300 metres of this stop in both Hailsham Road and Station Road, with a pedestrian crossing for those accessing the Station Road bus stop,outside the dental practice.

They should add a new pedestrian crossing between the crossroads and railway line, affording safer crossing to railway up-line, and use of shops.

This would save those with walking difficulties the need to walk to the crossroads to cross the road safely, whom in getting to and from that current crossing point, still need to cross two roads one side and three the other.

Doing such again will slow the traffic,if added, and bring custom into the town, I think!