Crookes and Walkey Active Travel scheme decision imminent

The Star, Sheffield

Crookes councillor Ruth Milsom explains ward councillors' views on the controversial Crookes and Walkley Active Travel Zone in Sheffield, with a decision on the future of the scheme due in September

Transcript

00:00 I'm just with Ruth Milsom, the Councillor for Crookes. Ruth, could you tell me please

00:06 what Labour's recommendations are going to be for the Crookes Active Travel Zone?

00:12 Yeah, sure David. I've been discussing this obviously a lot with my colleague Councillor

00:18 Mina Hishparek, also one of the Crookes Councillors here for Labour, and we've reached a position that

00:24 we feel quite confident in, knowing that we've been listening to residents and community groups

00:30 and organisations throughout Crookes, all the way through the trial period of this active

00:35 neighbourhood. We've listened and taken stock of all the comments that we've been aware of

00:41 and the recommendations we're going to make to the Transport Committee on the 20th of September

00:46 reflect all of that outcome of the consultation period.

00:51 What things are you looking at recommending? What do you want to keep? What do you want to remove?

00:56 Yeah, lots of measures obviously have gone in during the trial. We've had

01:00 modal filters in the form of planters on the roads that have changed the direction of

01:04 vehicles whilst allowing cycles through. We're recommending that most of those actually are not

01:14 retained as part of the scheme, but two that we feel have worked pretty well. We're recommending

01:19 to keep in the Leamington Road area of Crookes and Newant Lane where a very tiny narrow road

01:27 has been closed to traffic and that's not caused any issues. And so in terms of that sort of

01:34 hardware change on the roads that changes where vehicles can drive, not too much we're recommending

01:41 to be retained because we feel there hasn't been enough of a shift in behaviour that's been

01:46 beneficial to walking and cycling and we'd like to see the focus on some of the measures that have

01:51 been more beneficial. In terms of retaining things that aren't just planters, we're looking at the

01:59 two pedestrian crossings that we feel have been a real success. There's one on Crookes, there's one

02:03 on Crookes Mall Road and we feel those have really facilitated people on their walking routes

02:08 and hopefully encouraged more people to feel confident walking. And we'd actually also like

02:13 to see more done in the way of pedestrian crossings as well as we know that's really beneficial

02:18 to active travel. There's a school street as well that we've had implemented for Westway School

02:24 in the heart of Crookes and that's been not without its problems in implementing as these

02:31 things are always pretty complicated when you're changing the pattern of traffic movement.

02:35 But we've modified it as we've gone through the trial and we feel we've reached a point where it's

02:39 working okay and working with the school we'd like to see that continue and support them in

02:45 making it work even better.

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