Aylesbury Transport Strategy "Won't Work" - according to report commissioned by Hampden Fields Group.

Last year Aylesbury Vale District Council and Buckinghamshire County Council revealed their plans to develop roads and infrastructure around Buckinghamshire with cycle paths, rail links and bus networks to improve the way people travel through Aylesbury. .

A public consultation on the strategy has been running over the Christmas period, and ended earlier this week.

The £5000 crowd funded report, commissioned by the action group, has pointed out a number of ways in which they think the project is set to fail.

Phil Yerby, a spokesman from the group said:

"I realise the council are trying to put a positive spin on things but the reality is a town drowned in traffic with very poor air quality that will lead to economic disaster - who are they trying to fool?

"It's obviously very important that we get this right.

"What this independent report shows is that if you want to put 15,854 houses around Aylesbury, you can do it, but you can't do it without making traffic significantly worse.

"People sit in traffic coming into Aylesbury, not because they want to bypass Aylesbury, but because they want to get into the centre. Therefore a bypass is going to be ineffective.

"We are in a really serious situation here. I won't say it can't be done; it can be done, but if the council push on, we can almost guarantee that we're going to have traffic jams like you get in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Bangkok.

"Any sensible council would look to put some of the development around Aylesbury to the north of it on the Oxford to Cambridge expressway."

Two road side interviews have been conducted for the Aylesbury Transport Model, which asked commuters where their journey begins and ends.

"There needs to be a lot more of these road interviews done, because those were only on two access points into Aylesbury."

"AVDC and Bucks County Council have been pushing a change to get us to cycle and walk over the last 10 years but no discernible shift has happened.

"Do they think by putting new towns on the edge of Aylesbury that people are suddenly going to start walking and cycling into the town?"

We approached Bucks County Council, and Cabinet Member for Transport there Mark Shaw said he welcomed all 250 responses to the consultation, which included a report from the Hampden Fields Action Group.

"All these responses are important, and I'll be looking carefully at the details with the team.

"This is about taking time to look, listen and learn - and redraft if we need to."

Cllr Carole Paternoster, AVDC Cabinet Member for Growth Strategy commented: “The Aylesbury Transport Strategy is part of an overall integrated transport and land use strategy within our draft local plan.

"Aylesbury is to take 15,000 houses as part of our district’s housing growth and half of those have either already been built or are committed with appropriate transport improvements incorporated. We’re working with our colleagues at Bucks County Council to ensure transport links in and around Aylesbury are appropriate now and in the future”.

What do you think? Get in touch at: [email protected]