Sharon Bunce, Forum Member, to give Forum verbal update.

Sharon Bunce, Forum Member was now working with Lisa Hughes on issues relating to pedestrian safety, parking and public transport with a view to eventually leading on this for the Forum.
 
To date, Sharon Bunce had been involved with four pedestrian safety items that had arisen across the borough. There were as follows:

1. The pedestrianisation project on Castle Hill in Windsor:
Lisa Hughes, Angela Clark, and Sharon Bunce had attended a Zoom meeting with Engineers at Project Centre and RBWM officers to discuss how to maximise safety and inclusivity for the project. The recommendations relating to dropped kerbs, adequate turning spaces and footway widths and tactile paving were positively received.

 2. Uncontrolled pedestrian crossing at Bridge Road (Housing Sites Enabling Project:
Lisa Hughes made a submission in November 2020 to the consultation on proposed plans for the Bridge Road crossing which was one section of the Housing Enabling Sites Project.  The proposal was to reduce the width of the pedestrian refuge at Maidenhead Bridge and add another traffic lane at the roundabout. Lisa Hughes had provided very detailed information from the Department for Transport Traffic Signs Manual (2019) chapter 6 regarding refuge dimensions to enable safe crossing for people with wheelchairs, rollators, pushchairs etc., dropped kerbs and tactile paving for pedestrians with visual impairments.  

Since this work had completed, Lisa Hughes and Sharon Bunce had met at the crossing on 17 May to test out how safe or unsafe they felt in using the crossing. There were various aspects of the crossing that had serious safety concerns about:

·         The A4 was a very busy road, used by lots of commercial vehicles as well as cars.

·         Crossing towards Boulter's Lock involved going across two lanes of traffic.
Sight of pedestrians by vehicles in the inner lane could be blocked by vehicles in the inner lane.

·         The tactile paving and dropped kerb were very close to the roundabout so it only took two cars or one van/lorry queueing at the roundabout to block the pedestrian crossing point.

·         The tapering refuge was now very narrow, even at its widest point.

·         The tactile paving on the refuge had been installed with a strange camber and potential trip hazard where two pavers were not level with each other.

·         The tactile paving ran in two different directions and they only met for 20cm or so in the middle of the refuge.

Crossing from the refuge onto the Boulter's side of the bridge, pedestrians needed to watch traffic coming from two directions - Ray Mead Road and Bridge Road. It was even worse when you were crossing from the Boulter's side as you had to look 180 degrees behind you to see traffic coming from Ray Mead Road.

Sharon Bunce was in the process of writing to Tim Golabek, RBWM Service Lead – Transport and Infrastructure, to raise the concerns and would update the Forum at the next meeting.

3. Gardener Road:
Some service user feedback had been received about safety issues in Furze Platt due to the lack of dropped kerb crossings for almost three-quarters of a mile along Gardner Road and Switchback Road South. This affected many people using the Chemist, Post Office or Co-op at Shifford Crescent.  There were also no dropped kerbs at the junction of Harrow Lane and Queensway – a busy junction close to Furze Platt train station.  

Sharon Bunce had attended a site visit on 24 May with Lisa Hughes, Councillors Clark and Del Campo and two engineers from Project Centre.
The outcome of the visit was agreement that a dropped kerb would be installed between Queensway and the Switchback Road North roundabout near the bus stop.  A dropped kerb crossing was already scheduled to be installed across Switchback Road North close to the Shifford Crescent shops. Councillor Clark advised that other dropped kerbs across Gardner Road and Switchback Road South would be prioritised as the budget allowed and he would ensure that a bin obstructing the crossing at the traffic light near Furze Platt senior school would be removed.

4. Town centre crossings at the Queen Street/Broadway/Nicholson Walk junctions
Lisa Hughes and Sharon Bunce had recently reviewed the three crossing areas at this junction and believed that there were several safety issues with them including uneven pavements, unaligned tactile paving and some bike racks which may cause a turning obstruction.  Sharon Bunce was co-ordinating a site visit with Councillors Singh and Stimson and Lisa Hughes and would report back to the forum at the next meeting.

And finally, Sharon Bunce urged people to get in touch with any concerns that they heard of or observed in relation to pedestrian safety, parking or public transport which impacts on safety and inclusivity for people with additional needs. 

Sharon Bunce would also have a look at social media to enable people to raise any matters.

Councillor Stimson commented that information had to be documented correctly so that this could be improved going forward.

ACTION: Update to be provided at next Forum