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Five years of campaigning for improvements on Arbury Road (east). What next?

It is five years since the current members of ARERA’s committee started campaigning to improve conditions on our road for both residents and road users, including pedestrians.

Since then we have campaigned on a growing number of issues:

  • speed restrictions, monitoring and policing
  • improving pedestrian safety (via new zebra crossing)
  • removal of pavement parking (also to safeguard pedestrians)
  • deterring through (commuter) vehicles (to prevent tailbacks and pollution)
  • banning heavy goods vehicles (to prevent house shaking)
  • completion of cycle paths (as designated County Council ‘priority cycle route’)
  • inclusion in Milton Road Area Residents’ Parking Scheme, and
  • exclusion of illegal motor vehicle access to Arbury Court Play Area.

Where are we now?

In the most recent instalment of our campaigning, we had an on-street meeting last week with the Chair of the County’s Highways and Transport Committee (H&TC), Alex Beckett, and the County’s Principal Active Travel Officer, Clare Rankin.

We were also joined by Josh Grantham and Anna Wiliams from Camcycle. They worked with us on this year’s unsuccessful bid for a new zebra crossing between Milton Road lights and the North Cambridge Academy (turned down on the grounds of costs).

We discussed all the issues listed above with the H&TC Chair and Principal Active Travel Officer. They said that they understood the problems experienced on Arbury Road east but that action was difficult because:

  1. this section of the road is very narrow, and
  2. currently there aren’t any dedicated funds for undertaking the range of works that needs to be done.

Alex Beckett recommended that we keep making our voices heard and that we develop a staged action planfor implementing changes as and when/if money becomes available. Josh Grantham said that Camcycle was willing to work with ARERA on this.

What next?

We recommend that the ARERA committee works with residents (and businesses) in our catchment area who are interested in producing a detailed staged action plan that we can submit to the County’s H&T Committee.

We suggest that we set this process in motion at ARERA’s next AGM.

The current Chair and Secretary have already served on the committee in these posts for the 4 consecutive years allowed by ARERA’s constitution, https://arera.org.uk/about-arera/constitution/

Elections will be held at the next AGM to fill these posts.

If you would like to join the ARERA committee and/or help draw up the action plan for improvements on Arbury Road east, please let us know on info@arera.org.uk.

ARERA AGM: 29th January 2025
7pm at the Baptist Church
More details to follow in the new year

Please let your neighbours know

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Residents’ Parking Scheme: what we now know (and still don’t)

Residents’ Parking Scheme: what we now know (and still don’t)

We have been asked if we could write a short piece, in plain English, about where we are on the Residents’ Parking Scheme.

Here goes ….. two versions – a simpler and a more complicated one.


Simpler version
_______________

1. The Residents’ Parking Scheme is going to be implemented.

2. The County Council decided on September 16th to go ahead (they just haven’t got round to informing affected residents or businesses yet).

3. The County’s Head of Parking and Traffic Management has told us that she doesn’t know when scheme will be implemented. This decision rests with the Greater Cambridge Partnership.

4. The scheme will be implemented just as described in the information issued in the spring – despite the 288 objections recorded by residents and businesses about what was proposed.

5. Because of these objections, the scheme will be run as a pilot for the first six months.

6. At the end of this period, the scheme will be reviewed.

7. If elements of the scheme are found not to be working well, they could be altered. (BUT see more complicated version below.)

8. An email link is going to be set up to allow residents and businesses to comment on the scheme’s operation during the pilot period.

9. So do use this channel if you feel that you have been adversely affected by how the scheme works once implemented.


More complicated version
________________________

1 & 2 above. The decision to go ahead with the Parking Scheme has been taken as an executive decision by Jeremy Smith, Interim Assistant Director, Transport Strategy and Network Management following a resolution (see attachment) to:

“Recommend that the Executive Director of Place and Economy, in consultation with local Members, approve the introduction of the Milton Road Area Residential Parking Scheme, as published;
and
Approve a review of on-street parking in the affected area six months after the Residential Parking Scheme commences operation.”

“The local Members either attended or were invited to the CJAC meeting. Given the political sensitivity of this item, the Chair and Vice Chair of Highways & Transport Committee have been given the opportunity to ask that the matter be referred to that committee, but have not made such a request.”

So the decision on whether to implement the scheme has not had to wait until the next meeting of the Highways and Transport Committee in December as we were previously advised.

It has already been taken by a County Council Officer. The H&T Committee has chosen not to ‘call this decision in’ despite (or perhaps because) it is ‘politically sensitive’.

Note too the suggestion that our locally elected have been consulted about this. None of them has contacted our residents’ association about this.

4. The only one of the 288 objections to scheme recorded in the attached document – ‘Cambridgeshire County Council Record of Officer Delegated Decision taken following consideration by Cambridge Joint Area Committee’ – deals with exclusion of properties on the northern boundary of Arbury Road, see attached report.

Note that “no other options were considered.”

5 & 6 & 7 & 8 above. The Cambridge Joint Area Committee recommended in July that “a thorough review be carried out 6-month after implementation to assess on-street parking in the area. Should it be deemed that sufficient parking capacity exists to accommodate additional the parked vehicles generated by Arbury Road properties, including Havenfield, then a proposal to amend the Milton RPS will be pursued.”

This recommendation did not meet with our request that the performance of the scheme during six month pilot should be actively monitored by an independent third party.

HOWEVER ….

Through protracted correspondence with County Council Officers, we have found out that our Residents’ Parking Scheme has been set up using a PERMANENT Traffic Regulation Order.

The procedure for a PERMANENT TRO does not allow for a trial period or for subsequent changes.

If, after the trial period introduced by the County Council, changes – such as that quoted above from the report attached – are deemed necessary, then the existing TRO cannot be amended.

Instead it will have to be revoked.

And then a new TRO will have to issued in line with Department of Transport’s regulations which appear to require that a new consultation will have to be conducted once a new TRO has been issued.

_______________________________________

AND SO ……..

Given the complexity surrounding the introduction of the Residents’ Parking Scheme, ARERA is committed to keeping a close watching brief on what is happening.

This is not easy given the inadequate/tardy information issued by both the County Council and by the Greater Cambridge Partnership.


If you have any queries, please let us know.

If you hear of anything that we need to be aware of, please let us know.

If you have any concerns about what is happening, please send them to your local elected councillors (details on ARERA’s web site).

ARERA Committee

240916 Delegated Decision Record – Milton Road Residential Parking SchemeDownload
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Imminent County Council decisions affecting Arbury Road East

Much has been happening over the summer that will have significant impacts on Arbury Road East.

Decisions about whether a new zebra crossing will provided, under the Local Highways Improvement Programme (LHIP), and about the implementation of the Milton Road Area Residents Park Scheme, are imminent.

These decisions will be made at two meetings of the County Council’s Highways and Transport Committee (H&TC) to be held during the first week of October.

We have been trying to get access to the agenda papers for these two meetings to find out what is being proposed.

We were treated kindly by the Cambridge Joint Area Committee when we were invited in July to make submissions to it in support of our LHIP submission. But we have been unable to discover what recommendation it made about our proposed zebra cross to the H&TC which is going to make a decision about on October 1st. We have been told that no minutes of the CJAC meeting were made.

At a separate meeting, the CJAC recommended acceptance of the Greater Cambridge Partnership’s (GCP) proposals for our area’s residents parking scheme, despite the 288 objections made about it.

And this recommendation was made by the committee despite the public statement given our former councillor Jocelynne Scutt, who was the chair of the CJAC at the time of the GCP’s ‘consultation’ on the scheme in 2022. She publicly stated, as we consistently maintained, that the GCP had not provided information making clear that the north (even numbers side) of Arbury Road East would be excluded from the parking scheme.

The CJAC is recommending to the H&TC that the six-month trial of parking scheme, as described in the Traffic Regulation Order published in the Spring, should go ahead with the provisos that:
1.  a detailed evaluation should be made of the scheme at the end of the trial period
And
2. an online channel of communications should be set up so that residents and businesses can log their experiences during the trial,

ARERA has requested that the evaluation and the communications channel should be provided by independent third parties because of the GCP’s dire performance to date in relation to the parking scheme.

This all sounds very bureaucratic – because it is.

But this won’t make the consequences of decisions about to be taken any the less significant for those of us who live and work on Arbury Road East.

We will let you know when the committee papers for the two H&T committee meetings next month become available – in case you want to make your own representations to the committees.

And we will let you know the outcomes of the decisions the two meetings make as soon as they become available.

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Traffic counting equipment on Arbury Road East

You may have noticed the traffic counting equipment that has been installed outside the North Cambridge Academy.

We have put in a request to the County Council’s Highways Department asking what the purpose of this data collection is and how any data collected will be used.

If and when we get a reply, we will let you know.

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Judgement published on proposed new zebra crossing on Arbury Road east.

The summary report by the County Council’s Highways Officer who examined the feasibility of the proposed new zebra crossing for Arbury Road east has been released as an agenda paper for the Council meeting which will decide whether it should go ahead.

This meeting will now be held on the 25th of July.

Applications for funding are rated using a traffic light system.

Against all bar one of the reporting criteria the application for the zebra crossing has been rated as amber.

Against ‘deliverability’, it has been rated as red.

These ratings make it appear highly unlikely that the zebra crossing will be funded.

This is reinforced by the very high cost that the County Council has attached to providing a ‘raised’ crossing, as advised to ARERA by Camcycle.

The summary report to the committee is incorrect when it says that the introduction of a modal filter on Arbury Road east lacked support from local residents.

Our 2019-20 survey showed that this was not the case.

The summary report does, however, keep alive the hope that the County Council may yet deliver a “Future phase of cycle route improvements” on Arbury Road east.

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Cambridge News : Parking scheme on Cambs street could cause ‘a lot of ill feeling’

By Cait Findlay – Cambridge News Senior Reporter

The proposals would see residents’ parking bays on one side of the Arbury Road and double yellow lines on the other

A group of Cambridge neighbours have described plans to introduce parking measures in their area as ‘divisive’. Members of the Arbury Road East Residents’ Association (ARERA) criticised plans to introduce double yellow lines down one side of Arbury Road, with residents’ parking bays on the other.

Ian Cooper, secretary of ARERA, described the proposals of a Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) for Arbury Road as ‘divisive’. He said they split the street in half by providing residents’ bays on the south side of the street but not the north – and residents on the north side will not be eligible for residents’ parking permits under the scheme.

The proposed changes to Arbury Road have been put forward by the Greater Cambridge Partnership (GCP) as part of the Milton Road area resident parking scheme. Mr Cooper said he had asked the GCP why the two sides of the street would be treated differently and was told there was “inadequate on-street parking capacity”.

Simon Crisp said he would need to get the kerb lowered in front of his house to be able to park in front of his house. He said he would have to pay for the kerb to be lowered – when he began to research this, he found he would have to pay to make an application to the council for permission before paying around £1,200 for the work to be done.

Maggie Fernie said she only experiences issues with parking on Arbury Road on Saturday mornings. She said she is concerned about where tradesmen would park on the street with restrictions in place: “How is anybody going to get any work done?”

Mrs Lund added that the scheme might push parking onto adjoining streets like Maio Road that are not included in the proposals. She said this would “cause a lot of ill feeling”.

Lynne Miles, Director of City Access at the GCP, said: “The proposed scheme would see a combination of measures introduced to improve parking and road safety along a busy route in and out of the city. These measures would include new residents’ parking bays, pay & display and/or limited waiting bays, and double yellow lines in places deemed unsafe for people to park. The majority of residents were in support of the scheme as consulted upon.”

A consultation on the Milton Road area resident parking scheme, which includes proposed changes to Arbury Road, was carried out in 2022. Ms Miles added: “The scheme would help to provide dedicated parking for residents who currently find it difficult to park within a reasonable distance of their home, while also continuing to support the needs of businesses and community facilities in the Milton Road area.

“All schemes of this nature have to balance tricky issues about where to draw boundaries and how to accommodate differing needs to minimise any displacement effects to neighbouring areas. Cambridgeshire County Council, the highways authority, is expected to take the final decision on the proposed residents parking scheme – which has been subject to public consultation – in due course and if the decision is to go ahead, then a six-month review is recommended to consider whether the scheme needs to be amended.”

Findlay, C. (2024, June 24). Parking scheme on Cambs street could cause ‘a lot of ill feeling’. Cambridge News. https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/cambridge-neighbours-concerned-divisive-proposals-29395313

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County Council answers to questions about how proposed Residents’ Parking Scheme will affect Arbury Road east.

On March 18th, the County Council published a Traffic Regulation Order. This reveals how the County’s Residents’ proposed Residents’ Parking Scheme will affect those who live, work and travel to school along Arbury Road east.

The ARERA committee submitted more than 20 questions to the County Council asking for clarification about what it is planning to do.

Implementation of the scheme is being managed by the Greater Cambridge Partnership. The County’s Policy and Regulation team asked the Greater Cambridge Partnership to provide the additional information requested. The GCP’s project manager for the scheme has done so, leaving one question unanswered, see below.

The answers that have been given make clear that what is being done is the result, not of mistakes or oversights, but of deliberate policy decisions. These decisions will advantage some and disadvantage others. Which of these two groups will you find yourself in?

Are you personally going to be disadvantaged? Or can you see that others will be – including children going to school, pedestrians, cyclists and car owners, those shopping or working on Arbury Road east?

If so, you only have a short opportunity to make objections to, or comment on, what is being proposed.

Comments and objections have to be submitted by April 12th.

You can do this, quoting reference PR0998,

online using https://consultation.appyway.com/cambridge

or by email to Policy.andRegulation@cambridgeshire.gov.uk

or by writing to Gary Baldwin at the County’s Policy and Regulation Team*

* Box No. DBE, Huntingdon Highways Depot, Stanton Way, Huntingdon, PE29 6PY>

Here is the additional information provided by the County Council.

Revised parking scheme answersDownload
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Important news about the Residents Parking Scheme for Arbury Road East 

Residents and businesses on Arbury Road East – and its tributaries – need to be aware of what is imminently about to happen in the implementation of permit-based ‘Residents Parking’ on our road.

Adoption of this has been progressing very slowly through a very bureaucratic process. This process is about to reach a critical point – the issuing of a Traffic Regulation Order. This will offer you a short, time-limited, last chance to object, if you want to, to what is being proposed.

The Greater Cambridge Partnership has finished its consultations on Residents Parking Scheme for the Milton Road Area which includes Arbury Road East as part of the Hurst Park area. The GCP has passed its scheme to the Cambridgeshire County Council which has to make the final decision about whether it should be implemented, as the statutory highways authority. Before the scheme can go ahead, a Traffic Regulation Order must be issued. 

As Lynne Miles, the City Access Director for the GCP, advises in the information she has provided to the Residents Associations concerned, this TRO could be issued “in the next few weeks”, see attached pdf.

The County Council explains the legal basis and purpose of TROs on its website, https://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/residents/travel-roads-and-parking/roads-and-pathways/traffic-regulation-orders

The relevant information in our case would appear to be that:

“Traffic Regulation Orders (TROs) are legal documents that enable us as the local highway authority to prohibit, restrict or reduce the use of a road by traffic. This includes motor vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians. We implement TROs in line with:

·       The Road Traffic R

·       egulations Act 1984

·       The Local Authorities’ Traffic Orders (Procedure) (England and Wales) Regulations 1996

Measures we can bring in using TROs include:

·       Road or public right of way closures

·       Speed limits

·       On-street parking

·       Waiting, loading and unloading areas and time limits

·       Single and double yellow lines

·       One-way streets

·       Access and turning

·       Prohibition of certain types of vehicles

·       Width, height and weight restrictions

·       Bus and cycle lanes

·       Taxi ranks.”

Once you have seen the scheme set out in the TRO, if you want to, you can object to what it contains.

“Any person may object to a TRO. The traffic authority is obliged to consider such objections (and, if a public inquiry is held, the Inspector’s recommendations) before deciding whether or not to make the order”, see https://www.highwayengineer.co.uk/downloads/traffic-regulation-orders.pdf

You can find out more about TROs by contacting the County Council’s Policy and Regulation Team by email at policyandregulation@cambridgeshire.gov.uk 

As yet, it is unclear how the imposition of permits for residents parking might impact on our Local Highways Improvement bid for another zebra crossing on Arbury Road East. We have requested further information on this and will keep members posted.

Progress for TRO for RPSDownload