The Isle of Wight Council is proposing to cut the 50mph speed limit on Racecourse on the outskirts of Newport to 40mph in what seems to be a never-ending effort to grind the Island to a halt.
A consultation has been launched to gather views on whether or not the speed limit should be reduced on the stretch of road between Fairlee Road and Racecourse Roundabout in both directions.
It is all to do with the building of the new football ground on land at Whippingham. The local authority says the 10mph drop in the speed limit will help ensure safe entrance and exit from the football ground.
Currently, Racecourse is 1 of the only stretches of road between Ryde and Newport that is 50mph. If the slashing of the limit goes ahead then the only stretch that will remain 50mph will be between Racecourse and the bottom of Lushington Hill – but how long until that too is brought down to 40mph?
Furthermore, those heading to the football from East Cowes will not be allowed to make a right turn into the ground, instead being forced around Racecourse Roundabout and back towards East Cowes to make a left turn.
It remains to be seen when work on the new Newport IW FC ground will begin, but it has been suggested that ground will be broken in March.
You can have your say on the proposed speed limit cut at https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/NewFootballGround.
Very soon there won’t be any roads left on the Island where drivers are allowed to do even a moderate speed.
Which is why peoples DPF’s are all clogged up with soot and cars fail their emissions tests at MOT. It all ends up costing car owners hundreds of pounds!
you are missing the point…lower speed limits impede the ability of drivers to actually get somewhere in a decent time, so the chances of getting a fine increase as the speed limit drops…this is just about rinsing more cash from road users, nothing more.
40mph is hardly grind to a halt. If the experts think its a good idea, then il listen to them and not this opinion piece.
Its just another way to boost the council tax
Nothing more nothing less
Just a typical council stunt to leach more cash just before the unjust budget
How is it going t “leach more cash”, if you stick to the speed limit then no fine therefore no cash to anyone, it is not rocket science.
From the cost of the new signage
Remember the TWO slow down signs they were supposed to fit at the tiny cost of 150k each
I wasn’t talking about fines i never mentioned fines and if someone is stopped for speeding abd get a fine and points then good im all for that
Who says they are experts, they are just desk drivers.
Would be good to find a road on the island that is in a good enough state of repair to enable travelling at 50mph.
What’s the problem. With all the roadworks on the Island you’ll be lucky to do 20 mph so doesn’t matter what the speed limit is
cut speeds it is the isle of Wight. speeding is a part of being a islander with no insurance no tax no MOT being drunk on drugs fat and out of work
Looks to me to be preparing for more houses on the land there.
It would be interesting to know how many accidents there have been on that stretch of road that have been speed related.
I think you are right. If you look at al the times Newport FC moves, then sells off the land a few years later. Land that was previously not permitted for development all of a sudden makes massive profits after they move on. Well, I guess that’s one way of getting around planning rules?
Interesting that Newport FC will never own the ground. they will just be tenants. It will be South Coast Leisure that own the site.
In that case it will end up being a hotel if it doesn’t make a profit that is OTT.
From the diagram provided, it shows that you cannot enter the Football ground from the Racecourse, but only exit it in the direction of Ryde. If the exit road had sufficient access distance for vehicles to build up speed to join the main Racecourse road, (as required by the Highway Code – rather than sit still and attempt to join the moving traffic as often seen on Newport’s Dual Carriageway – there potentially could be no need to reduce the limit for a carriageway which is only subject to one lane having traffic entering it at occasional times and not in constant use.
But that would require the council to use a bit of common sense, and we know there is none of that in our council. Just another case of our council making things ever more difficult than they need to be for motorists.
Could end up with another set of traffic lights there at some point in the future. Seems a bit of overkill, looks like there is only parking for about 50 cars there.
It might be a good idea to actually start building work on this project before messing around with the speed limit. At their usual speed it could be years before anything is built. Could be, might be, should be starting soon just doesn’t cut it anymore.
So the tax payer will be stung again for new signs
I wounder how many 10s of thousands each sign will cost and weeks of disruption just to unbolt and swap them over
AFAIR from uni I remember 30km/h or 20mph is a standard in a place where cars, cyclists and pedestrians interact?
So… there’s no separated lane for cycles? Will pedestrians going to stadium have to cross the street there in big numbers on number of occasions? Are those pedestrians going to include children often?
If yes, then… it sounds sensible and completely by the book?
This is just what happens when traffic of vulnerable road users increases: you decrease the speed of dangerous vehicles to protect vulnerable road users. What else would you like to do with vulnerable road users?
> in what seems to be a never-ending effort to grind the Island to a halt.
That’s just bad journalism.
People would not be crossing the Racecourse, as football ground is not on the racecourse…
Well, then 2x the limit of 20mph seems OK.
The exit will be on the Racecourse though and I am sure there will be some who are fit enough to walk to the ground and leave in the same way so pedestrian traffic lights seem a possibility.
No one will care, unless Police speed camera is in permanent place.
jersey is limited to 40mph across the whole island
We have a large contingent here who would like to see the Isle of Wight become like Sark.
Not long until the 15 minute cities arrive, already in
Oxford and Canterbury
Yes, Boris, one of the WEF’s “good” ideas. Just hope you work within your allotted district else you’re be paying more to get to work.
They are crashing the economy
Please tell us how you got hurt by 15-minute city because you seem to mention it so often as something negative. As a person who lived 30 years in one, I find it super interesting.
It was quite awesome as a kid to ride my bike to school. I live now by school in East Cowes and see almost no kids biking 🙁
As an adult it was quite nice to have a park for running, a little shop, a local pub and a GP close. So much time saved.
When you want to go out further you have buses and other forms of public transport available within 15m to take you further.
If you’re planning a road trip in a car you can still go on one, just not around a block cause there’s no reason to.
It’s nice to have a freedom to not drive for hours everyday tbh.
That’s just the start, wait until they only allow people to go out for so long.
If it’s like you say it may work, but I am not too sure.
Jersey is also almost all country lanes, very few main roads.
So is the IOW
Benefits of living in a Tax haven?
I’m no expert but I can’t think of a dafter place to put a football ground. It’s miles from anywhere. The plans don’t show a decent sized car park (but do show opportunity for developments around the ground). I would think a better option would be to upgrade the playing fields at Medina school, adding the clubhouse and grandstand, and go for shared use. The current proposal is an accident waiting to happen. Imagine the chaos if both spectators try to leave at once!
I think you are being unfair. They will probably have at least a dozen spectators.
People who speed don’t care at all what the speed limit is. The last time the reduced the speed limit on the way out of newport the road got a lot busier. Slowing a road down reduces it’s capacity. Most accidents happen on busy roads.
I’m all for reducing capacity. Mostly due to induced demand. If you improve it, more people will just drive a car and fill the capacity again. If you reduce the capacity “of the road”, more people will look toward alternative forms of transportation that have better capacity “of the vehicle” (i.e how many people can bus carry and how much space it takes, vs a car that usually has 1.2 people on average inside ;)) so that’s awesome.
And most deadly accident happens with cars as well. Far less with better trained and checked bus drivers, and cycling has far less serious ones as well, except for those few which are mostly fatal, again, due to cars!
So less capacity for cars helps in so many ways, that’s a really good observation, Fred.
Familiar approach for another football ground. Coped for the last 5 years, with nothing but some hedge cutting to keep the planning permission going. How long until its changed to another town retail park?
Why don’t they just reopen the road on Binfield corner one way towards east cowes.. And have the entrance and exit on that road. And leave racecourse alone. They use that road for festival parking.
That’s what the original application detailed.
Don’t know why it changed.
Will not make any difference, usually stuck behind cyclists……
Let’s solve the Islands unemployment at the same time. Get someone with a red flag,to walk in front of every vehicle to warn of approaching danger!
I wonder the the average speed would be for the island if a typical journey of say 10miles was recorded, There’s a good chance it may be lower than 40 mph. This taking into account normal traffic conditions with the odd push bike and farm traffic. 40 mph is hardly crawling along
Don’t know why the cuncil doesn’t go the whole hog and insisdt that all vehicles have to have someone walking along in front of each of them waving a red flag.
If the council had it’s way it would be 30 mph every where except schools which would be 10 mph or less, expect Arreton to be the first
Roundabout congestion – interesting was a 50K feasibility study made on this? Racecourse road is not suitable for heavy or light traffic and definitely not for cyclists unless drastically widened and reinforced strengthening on the current proposed football stadium ground verge, and even then it should be a no cyclist route as there is a perfectly maintained cycle path running alongside.