Residents living on Belgrave Road in Ventnor are calling on the Isle of Wight Council to ensure traffic calming measures are installed prior to the road reopening later this year.
Island Roads is currently undertaking a major reconstruction project at Belgrave Road after a retaining wall gave way in January 2020, leading to the road dramatically collapsing.
The road between Alpine Road and Park Avenue has been closed ever since, but there are hopes that it will once again open to traffic by the end of 2022.
Now, some 64 residents have signed a petition demanding the Isle of Wight Council make an immediate decision to limit the amount of fast through traffic on Belgrave Road and to
protect the safety of pedestrians.
It’s said that the road will be under a 30mph speed limit with a new, low-vibration asphalt surface. It’s feared this will ‘encourage excessive speed’ and will take place without any change to the existing narrow pavements, which residents say are unsafe for pedestrians and those with mobility scooters.
Residents are calling for a 20mph speed limit, wider pavements and speed bumps or cushions to deter people from using the road as a shortcut.
The Isle of Wight Council say that a remodelling of the street scene was considered by the local authority last September, but no public consensus was given in respect to a preferred scheme. Furthermore, the council says that speed, traffic and accident data do not justify bringing forward a highway improvement scheme, with physical limitations on this part of the highway network also a consideration.
A review of speed limits across the Isle of Wight is currently underway and the first part of the review is expected to be completed by the end of March 2023.
Massive laugh at “incident data does not justify this” — you make streets nicer for pedestrians not only AFTER people get killed but preferably before and also to encourage people to walk more by making environment less threatening to those outside a metal shield. More people walking means less noise, better air quality, better fitness levels, less work for NHS, blah blah blah.
Eveyrone walks but not everyone drives, and it’s in the town, not outside, so if there are “physical limitations” then pedestrianise it and throw cars out altogether, clearly it doesn’t meet requirements for a safe space for humans in a town if you say that.
Please adopt some codes from Netherlands, please.
Fast traffic on this road. Don’t make me laugh.
I hope the locals never need a electrician gas fitter plumber decorater
how the flip do you expect people to work when all you want is a quite street. Selfish people just making it hard for people to earn a living.
Article mentions only calming measures so that’s fine but even with 100% pedestrianised area services usually can still go in. It works somehow like this: no thorough traffic, and if drivers don’t understand signs then it’s easy to achieve with an emergency gate (one that opens for emergency services only) at one end. Same for cars for disabled people, totally allowed in! They just need to yield to pedestrians and drive slowly.
Will never happen – IW Council does not know what Traffic calming is!
Great Preston Road in Ryde requires traffic calming to Stop motorists
Speeding.
20 IS PLENTY IS THE ANSWER
IW Council does not understand the meaning of the word Safety!
Good luck with that.
I disagree with most of the 20mph limits I’ve seen so far, but Belgrave isn’t safe for anything faster. To me it won’t even take two way traffic