Letters round-up: Highways, potholes and Watermead crem

Roads and the Watermead crem feature in this week's round-up of the Herald letters page.
Morris men performing in Watermead (picture: M. Hill)Morris men performing in Watermead (picture: M. Hill)
Morris men performing in Watermead (picture: M. Hill)

Highways

Traffic issues

Glynn White (letters 27 April) has got it right.

Aylesbury’s problem is that everywhere has been filled up and no room left to improve the existing road system.

It has been said repeatedly that infrastructure should be designed before development, not fitted in as an afterthought. The Woodlands site application says that it is “infrastructure led”, but in the case of Kingsbrook it was described without challenge as being “developer led”.

As Mr White says, the latest traffic modelling shows that all roads in east Aylesbury are facing traffic increases. This is not just Tring Road, but others like New Road and Bedgrove.

What should be clear to planners and developers is that more traffic increases noise, and vibration and pollutes the air.

Buses, bicycles and walking are to be encouraged, but they do not help businesses to move the freight which is essential for employment and our everyday living. That traffic needs to get into Aylesbury and it needs to be able to flow freely. .

In January 2015, before AVDC consented to Stage 1 of the Kingsbrook scheme, the Noise Report stated that some habitable rooms in properties facing the Stocklake Link Road would experience noise levels above acceptable standards.

Heavy duty acoustic double glazing would be needed as well as acoustic ventilation. Some gardens would need close-boarded 2-metre high boundary fencing to reduce noise. Not a good selling point, I fear. However, fencing will not keep polluted air away from gardens and public open spaces.

The Supreme Court and the health authorities continue to warn of the need for more stringent regulation of air quality.

As your correspondent Jim Wilding says (same letters page), residents need to keep a watchful eye open for suspiciously speculative planning applications which seem to be flooding in. The applicants have enough resources to supply the Council with heaps of supporting documentation.

Looking for a needle in a haystack is child’s play in comparison, and it is no wonder that important details can receive insufficient attention.

Mr O J Oliver

Campion Close, Aylesbury

Road

It’s being fixed

I refer to the article in last week’s BH concerning the state of one particular section of Weedon Road, Aylesbury.

Readers will have seen from the picture that it’s not pretty at the moment and I would be the first to agree with that.

However, rather than waste money on a temporary patch, we have major resurfacing planned for the summer from the Horse and Jockey traffic lights through to the Meadowcroft turning which includes this section.

Of course, we will be keeping a close eye on this section to make sure it doesn’t get any worse, but if we can make it last until we can re-surface it permanently, then that makes our cash go further.

We’ll keep local people up to speed when we have a confirmed slot for the work, but in the meantime, if motorists can bear with us, we’d appreciated it.

Mark Shaw

Cabinet Member for Transportation, Buckinghamshire County Council

Stalwart

Deserved honour

I was delighted to read in this week’s Bucks Herald that Freda Roberts is to receive an honour from the Council.

I had the very great pleasure of being her secretary during her years as Mayor of Aylesbury.

She always showed the utmost kindness and helpfulness to any constituent who came to seek her help. She was never too busy to do all she could to solve the problems which were presented to her.

I think I would be embarrassing her if I were to list any of the many kind acts she undertook.

She provided me with a very happy period of my working life and the Council’s honour and her MBE are very well-deserved.

Douglas Joss,

Lionel Avenue, Wendover

Crematorium

Beggars belief!

My wife and I, along with many others, recently spent a most enjoyable afternoon, attending Watermead’s May Day Fair.

The sun was shining, the Morris Dancers were doing their thing in time honoured fashion, and, from the look on the children’s faces, hanging on to their ice cream cones, a good time was being had by all.

Just behind the trees on the photo above is the Fantasia Circus’s tent, now a regular visitor to the area, and to the right, at the start of the ski slope is, would you believe, the proposed site for a Crematorium!

How can this possibly be justified; the incongruity and absurdity of it all just beggars belief!

M. Hill

Address supplied

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