Creeting St Peter - a little bit closer to McDonalds…

It would be fair to say that the Gateway 14 development has been a part of my life for the best part of five years now, with the initial controversy over the placement of a business and enterprise park on our doorstep succeeded by the long and wearying hybrid planning application phase during which a plucky parish council, working alongside a residents actions group, strove to improve the original proposals.

In the end, the District Council, the owners of Gateway 14, pretty much got their way, as was fairly inevitable. We did get some mitigations, with a bund to screen the site from the nearby group of properties at Clamp Farm, a promised electric bus service to transport workers to and from Stowmarket town centre and improvements to the lighting and ecosystem protection.

Last week saw a ceremony to mark the commencement of work on the new distribution centre for "The Range" and today we had the official opening of Gateway Boulevard, the spine road for the development.

So far, so meh. But, for residents of Creeting St Peter, it meant the final closure of our old road to Stowmarket, and its replacement with a new, more direct route to Tesco (our nearest supermarket), Stowmarket and the A14. And so, a few of us turned up for the opening ceremony.

What had been a bright and sunny morning had become a rather raw, cloudy afternoon, heavy with the threat of rain, but the local dignitaries had turned up, councillors, the Mayor of Stowmarket and the board of Gateway 14 Ltd, to witness the cutting of a ribbon by James Caston, Chair of Mid Suffolk District Council.

With the official opening complete, there was an offer of tea and cake. However, given that it was a bit bleak, and I had work to get back to, Ros and I decided to skip the free calories and drive home... using the new road. In the picture, you might make out a yellow van, out of which an employee of the contractors got before kicking the cones into the nearby ditch and thus effectively opening the road to through traffic, which makes us the second people to drive out of Gateway 14 towards the Creetings.

I'll remember it for the rest of my days.

It must be said though that, finally, the whole Gateway 14 thing feels a bit more real and, for residents of Creeting St Peter, there is a tangible benefit, in that our journey times are reduced and a few existing highways problems have been solved.

It also means that we feel a little less detached from Stowmarket which, if you don't live here, might seem a bit strange. But our village has always been far enough away from Stowmarket to feel as though we're not connected, yet close enough for residents to benefit from a convenient mainline railway station and the services that a decent-sized town has to offer. I do wonder if, in time, it will change the dynamic of our community.

And now, we're all going to have to get used to using different routes to get back to the village. I'm sure that we'll adapt eventually...

Creeting St Peter - a new piece of local government jargon to master

There is always something to learn in the wonderful world of local government, and this week’s phrase is “stopping up order”.

As part of the Gateway 14 development, the road between our village and the Cedars Park area of Stowmarket will be closed, to be replaced by a more direct route running through the centre of the new business and enterprise park. In addition, the footpath that similarly links us to the edge of Stowmarket (particularly useful for a gentle stroll to Tesco) will be diverted around the proposed development sites. The stopping-up order permits the closing of the old road and diversion of the footpath and technically requires the approval of the Secretary of State for Transport. Whilst I’m fairly confident that Grant Shapps won’t actually be doing anything other than leaving the matter to a member of the National Transport Casework Team, it does behove us as a statutory consulted to take it seriously.

I’m not all that bothered about the proposed footpath diversion - it’s slightly longer but not much, and the surface will be much improved when upgraded to a bridleway.

The road, on the other hand, is more of a problem. In response, I’ve drafted a response as follows;

DRAFT ORDER: E/4791 - PROPOSED STOPPING UP OF HIGHWAY AT MILL LANE TO STOW PATH CREETING ST PETER, STOWMARKET IP14 5BP

I write on behalf of Creeting St Peter Parish Council, the boundary of whose jurisdiction lies at the point where the newly proposed road joins the existing carriageway.

Whilst the concept underpinning the proposed stopping up of the existing highway and its replacement with the new route (indicated in orange on your draft plan) is supported by the Parish Council, there are two aspects which concern us.

Firstly, the proposed carriageway linking the roundabout to the point where it joins Mill Lane is intended to be considerably wider than the road it will feed traffic into. This will create a “pinch point” for all traffic leaving the planned development the new carriageway is intended to serve.

We would therefore urge conditions that mitigate against this sudden narrowing of the carriageway, perhaps including development of the existing section of Mill Lane as it continues in an easterly direction.

Additionally, the resultant change in carriageway width will occur on the right-angled corner where the new road joins the existing one. A key planning condition for the development for which the proposed new road is the key spinal route is that a 4.5 metre tall bund, with planting on top of that, is to be developed running along the south side of the new road at the point where it approaches Mill Lane. This will evidently eliminate sight lines until the point where the junction between old road and new is reached.

We therefore strongly recommend a redesign of the junction so as to remove the two right-angled bends from the current proposal, to be replaced with a smoothed transition, improving sight lines and reducing the incidence of congestion caused by heavy goods vehicles, in particular articulated lorries, meeting at a section of carriageway unsuited to traffic of that kind. It would also offer the benefit of reducing the amount of braking, and thus noise pollution, affecting residents of the residential properties adjoining the corners in question.

It should be noted that Mill Lane is already the primary route of access to and from the industrial facility at Grove Farm, and thus is used by articulated lorries delivering materials to, and finished products from, a concrete products factory, Poundfield Precast, and thus the question of access for heavy goods vehicles is very much a live one.

In our submission to Mid Suffolk District Council relating to the planning application creating the need for this stopping up order, we noted our concerns about the proposed road layout at Clamp Farm, highlighting the issues with drifting snow at that corner. Smoothing the corner would allow the drifting snow to gather beyond the road, ensuring that the road is open at all times.

We therefore call upon the Secretary of State to require a significant redesign of the intersection between the new road and the existing carriageway along the lines suggested above.

We trust that the issues which concern us have been raised with sufficient clarity, but would be happy to meet with you, or a colleague, to inspect the site and to explain our concerns in the context of the issues impacting upon it.

This is, I emphasise, a first draft response which I’ve asked my fellow councillors to consider, but I think that it’s a thoughtful one, given that there are some advantages to rerouting the road to Stowmarket. 

And, it’s a new piece of jargon for me to pick up, so that’s a thing, isn’t it?

Follow, follow, follow, follow, follow the privatised brick road...

Whilst Suffolk County Council has rowed back somewhat from its originally announced goal of divesting itself of all services, our Conservative f(r)iends are still keen to ensure that, regardless of what Suffolk residents want, there will be little scope for an incoming council to change very much.

The road to Stonham Aspal?

Their next wheeze is to hand over responsibility for all highways related services to a single private sector organisation, the Fully Private Sector Model, as it is called. The new organisation will be responsible for, amongst other things, the design and construction of highways improvements, winter maintenance, road safety education and street lighting (although not the latter in Paradise-sur-Gipping, because we own the street lights here!).

We are assured that the input from local county councillors and town and parish councils on the delivery of the service will be enhanced, and that, as much of highway work is carried out by local (often small scale) contractors, the glorious Portfolio Holder for Roads, Transport and Planning, Guy McGregor, will ensure that the good relations that currently exist will continue under the new arrangement.

Now I admit to some cynicism here. Most Conservative county councillors do as they're told right up to the point when they risk losing their seats, and they aren't renown for the volume of casework they get through (I still haven't seen a leaflet from either my county or district councillors outside of an election campaign). Given that the likely break clauses in any contract will almost certainly favour the contractor rather than the council, it would be reasonable to assume that, before the ink is dry, the new contractor will suddenly become harder to reach, and young Weasel McGregor will be wringing his hands, saying that there is nothing he can do.

Suffolk has hundreds of miles of narrow country lanes, many with low traffic volumes but of vital importance to the villages that are linked by them. There is likely to be little profit in maintaining them, and a village of 200 or so is easy to ignore (our votes aren't important enough, I guess). On the other hand, I'll be delighted to make our county councillor work a bit harder at future Parish Council meetings if this turns out badly...

Can you leap a dual carriageway in a car? Suffolk Highways think you can.

I mentioned the closure of Fen Lane in passing a few days ago, and it has subsequently been brought to my attention that the proposed diversion has a slight flaw.

Doesn't everyone drive one of these?

Whilst the notion of using Church Lane to get from St Mary's Church to Jacks Green Road is an interesting one, the lack of a bridge over the A14 dual carriageway is a bit of a challenge. I'm told that the wooden bridge closed to vehicles might be a bit tricky too...

Ros has suggested that the ladies and gentlemen from Highways might like to check the route before the publish it in future...