Representation by Duncan Bennett
- Date submitted
- 13 June 2023
- Submitted by
- Members of the public/businesses
Traffic on the Upper Tilehouse St/A602/Paynes Park junction and Pirton Road/A505/Upper Tilehouse St/Wratten Road junction in the West of Hitchin is already above capacity. The North Herts Local Plan proposes works to these junctions to accommodate the additional traffic generation from developments on sites allocated within the newly adopted Local Plan. These do not solve the existing capacity and congestion issues. The proposals to increase capacity on the A505/A602/B656 route to between Luton and the A1M comprise: • Signalisation of the Pirton Road/A505/Upper Tilehouse St/Wratten Road junction (Scheme HM8); • Signalisation of the Upper Tilehouse St/A602/Paynes Park junction (Scheme HM10); and • Improvement of the A505/B656 Hitchin Hill roundabout (Scheme HM15). These schemes are recognised in the testing documents as barely accommodating the growth predicted by the Local Plan transport assessment assessments, and would not therefore accommodate the additional traffic growth from Luton travelling to the A1M or additional growth beyond the plan period. They are in effect a sticking plaster solution. The London Luton Airport Expansion proposals duplicate these proposed works, and thus do not deliver a transport solution to accommodate the additional traffic generated by the expansion of the airport combined planned housing growth in Hitchin and Luton. The same improvements are being planned by NHBC and Luton Airport to address separate traffic growth. An additional factor should be the suitability of the existing roads to accommodate the level of predicted traffic. The additional traffic generated by the Luton Airport Expansion travelling to the A1M would travel through Hitchin via Moormead Hill and Upper Tilehouse Street. These are single lane roads with residential dwellings on either side and run through a catchment area for Samuel Lucas JMI school. These factors conflict with increased capacity in the following ways: 1. The roads and pavements along Upper Tilehouse Street are narrow and result in extremely close proximity of high volume traffic and pedestrians. The traffic includes a high volume of HGV’s and the pedestrian flows include a large number of infants and children travelling to and from the school. This is just an accident waiting to happen. 2. Traffic travelling up Moormead Hill regularly travels far too fast and represents a safety hazard for children and parents trying to cross this road. 3. Upper Tilehouse Street is suffering from high levels of air pollution and the Upper Tilehouse Street/Paynes Park junction is a designated an Air Quality Control Area as a result. The predicted additional traffic, from both the new housing and the airport expansion, will exacerbate this problem within a residential area. The above safety and health factors demonstrate that Moormead Hill and Upper Tilehouse Street are unsuitable as strategic roads and strategic traffic should be diverted along an alternative route. The above mitigation proposals should be dropped in favour of an enhanced road linkage between the dualled A505 west of Hitchin and the Hitchin Hill roundabout. This scheme matches Scheme 80 assessed within the Hertfordshire Transport Vision High Level Project Appraisal of Long List of Schemes for Hertfordshire Transport Vision produced by AECOM in February 2016. This will resolve the current capacity issues, accommodate additional traffic generated by the North Herts Local Plan housing allocations, the additional traffic generated by the Luton Airport expansion, the proposals within the Luton Local Plan, and reduce safety and health issues on Moormead Hill and Upper Tilehouse Street.