Randwick Parish Council: drains, lighting and more

I am just back a wee while ago from Randwick woods - all wonderful in the misty afternoon light - anyhow I thought I had better do a quick update re Randwick Parish meeting on Thursday night - I walked up to the Village Hall as usual only to remember on arrival that it was one of the months that the meeting was at the Scout Hall - ****!**!!!****

Photo: View across to Ash Lane

I managed to get there for 7.30 and various items discussed - drains being one of them - it led me to sending another email to Highways - see below (i) - plus the plans to consider turning off some street lights are moving ahead slowly - Whiteshill and Ruscombe Parish have already done their consultation on this - anyhow I enclose some useful info below (ii) - also see previous blogs on this topic.

There was also an update re the moves to try and get lower speeds in the Parish - a hand speed gun has already been used with a top speed recorded of 42mph on Blenhiem Pitch - that is seriously fast for that stretch! One person speeding who was stopped by the speed gun folk said: "If I don't go up at that speed I wont get up the Pitch!" Hopefully more speed testing will go-ahead soon - volunteers still being sought! The Sustainable Communities consultation was briefly discussed (more on that v soon) plus the Parish plans to update their procedures. Anyhow minutes will be out soon from the meeting so anyone interested check them out.


(i) Re Drains/Gullies

There seem to have been on-going problems at a number of road drains over recent years in the Randwick area. The levels of rainfall during the last year would seem to indicate very strongly that at several sites the drains are insufficient to cope with the water. This could be due to the lack of regular maintenance or the need to redesign them to cope with larger flows of water/debris etc?

I have had phone calls from several residents about the unsatisfactory state of these drains, although I would like to note that they were attended to very promptly after my phone call to your drains hotline.

In the light of this I would request that the following drains are reviewed to see if they can be improved. There maybe others but these are the ones identified as needing extra work so far:

1. The dip at Humphreys End was nearly a foot deep in water - the drain has now been cleared although debris/sludge etc has been piled up too close to the drain and will no doubt be washed down when we have more rain.
2. Bottom of Redhouse Lane
3. Far Westrip - opposite telephone box
4. Ash Lane
5. Two sites near Court Farm, Randwick

(ii) Street lighting

Essex County Council whom I've mentioned on this blog before are now running 2 trials, across the districts of Maldon and Uttlesford. The sreetlights have individual timers fitted that turn the lights off at local midnight (which is around 1am in summer due to BST).

So far the trials have been successful with little or no evidence of the outbreaks of crime and disorder some had predicted. Not surprising as most crime occurs duing the day and contrary to what many authorities peddle, there is no evidence that lighting per se deters crime.

The bigger issue is safety ie how many people are likely to be about after midnight who would be affected. The advantage of the Essex system is that as lights can be individually controlled, areas where it is known there will be significant numbers of people about late ie train stations, main town centres, or where there is genuine concerns over safety ie a well know accident blackspot or road junction, they can be left on. If the trial is successful it will hopefully be rolled out across Essex. Some parish councils have objected, but many have welcomed the scheme. As Essex has around 150,000 streetlights, the potential energy and cost savings are clearly huge.

There are other counties looking at doing this - Gloucestershire has a number of trials in the pipeline - if Essex is successful it is likely to be followed elsewhere. An alternative is dimming late a night , but this requires certain types of lights to be fitted in the first place. It has been used in Lancashire and there is talk of the Highways Agency using it more widely on the trunk road network - probably using sensors to detect the level of traffic and adjust the lighting levels accordingly.