RESPONSE TO e-PETITION REQUESTING A CROSSING FACILITY IN WYMONDLEY ROAD Thank you for your e-petition on the Hertfordshire County Council website requesting a new crossing at the eastern end of Wymondley Road. In order to consider the request for a formal pedestrian crossing point a feasibility study would need to be funded. This study would check the desired crossing location, outline design criteria such as visibility issues and the most suitable form of crossing related to traffic flows and pedestrian movements. There are currently no proposals for formal crossing facilities in Wymondley Road within the Council’s highway work programmes. The costs of zebra and pelican/puffin crossings are significant and if a feasibility study identified a need, the proposal would have to be considered for and achieve priority for funding alongside a wide range of other potential proposals. In general terms, potential sources of funding are: Road Safety Funding The Council's road safety engineering specialists consider all reported personal injury collisions in the County on an annual basis and identify locations at which there are concentrations of reported injury collisions. Taking into account the collision history for the entire County, the Council initiates road safety engineering enhancements, on a prioritised basis, where we identify there are aspects of the road environment that could be modified and/or improved to reduce the potential for future collisions. The current collision data for this location has been checked and there have been no personal injury collisions in the last three years for which data are available As such, this location does not meet our intervention levels and therefore will not attract core funding from Hertfordshire County Council’s annual Road Safety budget. Funding from Development Agreements ‘Section 106’ funding is funding provided by developers under their planning consent to resolve potential highway issues resulting from their proposed new development. However, in this instance, Hertfordshire County Council has no suitable Section 106 funding for the provision of such a facility. Highway Locality Budgets An alternative source of funding could be through the local County Councillor’s Highway Locality Budget (HLB). County Councillors have £90,000 each financial year to direct towards highway related matters in their division. This can be allocated to traffic/highway related works and studies, such as formal pedestrian crossings or relatively low cost works to help alleviate local concerns. Possible Alternative Having set out the position relating to funding, we have undertaken some limited investigation of the site and a sample pedestrian count was carried out between 08.00 and 09.00 on one day and between 15:00 and 16:00 on another day. This was not intended to be a formal assessment but rather to gain a feel for the numbers of people crossing at that point at what were likely to be times of higher usage. On the days in question there were 31 in the afternoon (including 9 children) and 17 in the morning (including 12 children).These numbers suggest that a formal crossing would probably not be justified against technical criteria and, as already mentioned, there have been no personal injury collisions which would help support the case for a formal crossing. However, our limited investigation suggested that pedestrians do not currently cross at the best places and that there is scope to improve the existing crossing arrangement and the guidance to pedestrians as to the best location to cross. The County Council will therefore discuss with residents’ representatives and the local County Councillor changes that could be made at relatively low cost. Subject to the outcome of such discussions and a successful road safety audit of any proposals, we would investigate funding for a potential scheme.