| E-Petition – Install a Pelican Crossing on the Luton Road in front of the Luton Road entrance to Lydekker Park. The concerns raised within this petition have been considered by officers and discussed with the local County Councillor whose division Luton Road is located within. The lead petitioner has also been contacted and has met with a Highways officer on site. The County Council has not identified the installation of a pelican crossing as a priority for pedestrian improvement works within its core Integrated Transport Programme, or as a site requiring further investigation. The County Council in partnership with St Albans City and District Council developed an Urban Transport Plan for Harpenden. The purpose of the Plan was to develop a range of schemes and interventions, across all modes of transport, to address existing problems in the area. The Plan identified a number of transport improvement schemes for further consideration over the life of the plan, to help deal with existing and possible future traffic issues; these are then prioritised and developed subject to funding being available. Improvements to pedestrian crossing facilities in Luton Road were not identified as one of those priority sites within the Urban Transport Plan. The County Council also has a program of work which is designed to make its roads safer. This is known as the Safety Engineering Program of work, and safety engineering specialists consider all reported personal injury collisions in the County on an annual basis, and identify locations where there are concentrations of reported injury collisions. Road safety engineering schemes are then promoted, on a prioritised basis, where it is identified that aspects of the road environment could be modified and/or improved to reduce the potential for future collisions. The personal injury accident history at and near to this location has been investigated and this shows that there have been two accidents which have resulted in injury in the last three years, however neither involved pedestrians. Therefore this location would not attract core funding from the County Council’s annual road safety budget. The petition mentions that pupils cross this part of Luton Road on their journey to and from school. All schools throughout the County are encouraged to produce and maintain active School Travel Plans, whilst the County Council's Schools Road Safety Officers can offer to support and provide advice to schools in producing such plans. The School Travel Plan is a document that sets out what improvements can be made in terms of pupils' journeys to and from school, with a particular emphasis placed in shifting the mode of travel to more sustainable means. Where plans identify improvements that might be made to the Highway, funding may be attracted from the County Council’s Safer Routes to Schools program of work. Such requests are ranked and prioritised for works delivery within the program. It appears that St George’s School does not have an active School Travel Plan, therefore this means that the construction of a Pelican Crossing would not attract funding from the Safer Routes to Schools program. A Schools Road Safety Officer will shortly contact St Georges School, inviting them to re-engage in the School Travel Plan process. When the County Council receives a request for pedestrian crossing facilities to be improved, which fall outside of its core programs of work, initial investigations into the request may be undertaken by means of carrying out Traffic Speed and Volume Surveys, as well as a Manual Pedestrian Count. The data captured from such surveys is analysed to determine if the request meets the criteria for the matter to be considered further. There is no funding available from the County Council's core budgets towards the cost of the surveys. However, the Local County Councillor for the Division in which this request sits, will consider funding the cost of the surveys using the Highway Locality Budget Scheme in a future financial year. Once the surveys have been completed, it is proposed to present the findings to the County Councillor in order to determine and agree the next course of action. |