No easy answer for ‘death trap’

As a recently retired Climping parish councillor, I carried the brief for roads in the village from 2011 until September, 2014. In this time, numerous projects involving the roads were worked on and the finalisation of these is now about to happen.

This year the whole village, with the exception of the A259, will see the speed limits reduced to 30 miles per hour and 20 miles per hour in Climping Street. Yes, it takes that long!

All of this time there has been money in West Sussex County Council’s coffers to make the Horsemere Green Lane/Church Lane junction safer, including a controlled crossing point.

The problem is not new and everyone is aware of the number of traffic related ‘incidents’ that have occurred there.

We were within an ace of having the crossing point in early in 2014, but last minute disagreements about its position relative to the junction saw the project stopped in its tracks.

A lengthy study was then conducted into controlling the junction itself with lights, but this foundered on the space available and the nature of Horsemere Green Lane approaching the junction.

So the current situation, as I understand it, is that it is back to the drawing board to seek, possibly, a more radical approach to the problem.

One of these could be to make Horsemere Green Lane a no through road by blocking it off at the pond. This would immediately dramatically reduce the traffic as it would no longer be a ‘rat run’ and remove all commercial vehicles from it.

With the upcoming 30 miles per hour limit on Church Lane in place, the junction would then become much safer. Otherwise, the junction could be closed altogether and Horsemere Green Lane be re-routed to join Church Lane further south.

It should also be remembered that virtually any solution would result in street lighting and it is inevitable that there will be strong objections to such a development.

Believe me, there has been almost non-stop work on a solution to the problems of this junction for at least the last four years and the county council is well aware of that.

Barry Shears

Yapton Road

Climping

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