Representation by Simon Rixon
- Date submitted
- 20 September 2020
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
I write being a local resident local to Sizewell to register a serious concern and consideration regarding the proposed Sizewell expansion. My concern is the traffic and road safety aspects during the lengthy development phase. My work as a driving instructor and advanced test examiner makes me particularly concerned about the outcomes involved. I live in Hacheston on the B1116, a few miles just north of the southern park and ride site. Road safety concerns already exist for roads and in particular villages and towns surrounding the Sizewell site, before any proposed development. This is largely a matter of excessive speed and large vehicle movements often also at illegal speed, at day and night. A village in the area recently had a temporary sign to passing motorists informing them that, from their village survey, in one day 2600 vehicles passed through but 2200 of them were travelling in excess of the posted 30mph speed limit. In our village, Hacheston, in the evenings and overnight vehicles travel through the approximate one mile long village 30mph zone substantially in excess of the speed limit, including very large heavy goods vehicles. This is especially the case in the dark and at night when visibility obviously is poor. An clear concern with the Sizewell expansion development phase is with the vast increase in vehicle movements, to and from the park and ride facilities in particular. There is also worry about the enormous growth in heavy goods vehicle movements. The park and ride facilities obviously help direct traffic and movements away from the Sizewell site itself, but will literally drive vast traffic volumes through the surrounding roads, villages and towns; the project acknowledges this fact in the figures and statistics already offered. Many if not most of these vehicles will have excessive speed, sadly this is the case. This traffic, at speed, seriously affects the safety, environmental and noise pollution and also the fundamental quality of life of residents alongside or near these roads. The Sizewell development may not be welcomed by many people locally for these and many other reasons. But accepting that more power generation is required locally and nationally, if final planning is approved the Sizewell project should accept the genuine greater road safety concerns and take greater additional care to mitigate them. The project should fund methods to monitor vehicle speeds and noise/environmental pollution. The project should fund and use methods to persuade and ultimately control vehicles to use preferred larger-road routes, monitor and control vehicle speeds and ensure legal speed limits are not exceeded at any time. For example, telemetry and other technology is quite able to enable this for any worker or contractor travelling to the Sizewell area. Funding should enable additional local village group speed controls to be resourced appropriately. Funds should also be provided for additional local Highways Agency and Police officers to “police” the local areas for traffic violations, day and night. In summary, the project related traffic growth affects many many thousands of people for a decade or more. It will have a major detrimental effect on their quality of life and well-being. This will happen if Sizewell goes ahead, the road related measures proposed by the project – park and rides, new roads, etc. - in affect accept this point by virtue of those measures. I suggest that a condition of the project being approved is that additional road safety related measures must be identified, investigated and a mitigation plan, some examples provided, be funded and delivered. This will not remove the disruption to local people and areas, but it will ensure that the affects over such a long period of time to their quality of life and well-being are kept to the absolute minimum.