At yesterday’s Cheadle Area Committee councillors approved the proposals for new parking restrictions on Coniston Road, Gatley, which aim to keep the junction safe and prevent parking down the road from causing problems for passing traffic, especially larger vehicles, such as fire engines.

The proposals must now be advertised, allowing anyone the opportunity to object. They’ll come back to Cheadle Area Committee (probably in October) when those objections (if any) will be considered.

If councillors then decide to approve the plans, the lines can be painted and the new restrictions imposed.

Old Hall Road in Gatley is one of the locations benefiting from the £2 million extra Stockport Boost funding put it to fix our roads after all the problems last winter.

The section to be resurfaced (and no prizes for guessing - anyone who’s seen it in the last few months will know) is from Pendlebury to near Leyland.

According to the programme, it’s due to be done in “summer” - whenever that might arrive.

You can see the full list for this phase of work on the Council website here.

For several months Pam and I have been working on getting a series of yellow lines put down in key places around Cheadle where residents have complained cars parking near junctions is causing safety issues.

Yesterday’s Cheadle Area Committee approved the final stage which means the order can go in and the lines painted.

They are:

• On Grange Park Road (both sides) near the junction with Wilmslow Road.
• On Wilmslow Road north and south of the entrance to Whitegates
• On Wimslow Road north and south of the junction with Warren Avenue
• On Schools Hill at the junction with Daylesord Crescent

None of these are long sections of lines - in every case the aim is to protect junctions rather than remove legitimate parking spaces.

Hopefully we’ll see these lines appear soon.

I’ve been told (by Matt Davis from the Stockport Express) that there was a nasty accident at the busy Kingsway/Gatley Road junction yesterday (Monday) morning.

A car turning right from Gatley onto Kingsway was hit by an ambulance, flipped over and ended up on its roof. By a miracle, the elderly driver had only minor injuries.

This sort of issue is, of course, one of the things Mark Hunter, Pam King and myself have been arguing with the Highways Agency about for some time.

The Highways Agency and Manchester Urban Traffic Control (who control the junction and have the final say over any changes) have so far resisted right turn filters due to fears over safety, but the current situation clearly isn’t as safe as it should be.

They even proposed their own solution, backed up by their own evidence: reducing the total cycle time of the lights from three minutes to two. This would increase the number of cars able to turn right from Cheadle and Gatley by 50% (as the cars would have an opportunity to nip right onto Kingway every two minutes instead of every three) and, I would hope, make it a bit safer if only because we’d all get less frustrated waiting in queues to turn right and so be less likely to take risks.

Unfortunately, having promised they would implement the change (which required no roadworks - just a change in the computer that could have been turned back had it caused problems), they then reneged on the agreement without telling us and so nothing has been done.

That discussion is ongoing - though taking far longer than it should be. How many more accidents and how many more months or years of long queues will we have to endure before the Highways Agency acts?

From the Council:

Water mains improvements affecting roads in Bramhall village centre will be carried out during the school summer holiday. Stockport Council has worked closely with United Utilities (UU) to schedule the work during the holiday period when there is less traffic, and to minimise the impact on local businesses and motorists. Warning signs will alert motorists to the work and houses and businesses have received leaflets. The work starts on Monday 26th July. The work will be carried out in three phases:

· Phase 1, from July 26th for 2 weeks: Temporary two way traffic lights on Ack Lane East in the direction of Moss Lane.

· Phase 2 from August 9th and every day for 2 weeks: Temporary four way traffic lights at the junction of Ack Lane East, Moss Lane, Woodford Road and Bramhall Lane South. During the first week Syddal Road at the junction of Woodford Road with be closed and a local diversion will be in operation. Excavation work takes place 7 days a week on the water main beneath the mini roundabout. UU staff will be on site to alter traffic light timings to reflect demand throughout the day. During the work, pedestrian islands at the junctions of Ack Lane East with Bramhall Lane South and Woodford Road, and Moss Lane with Ack Lane East will be removed to help traffic flows. Improvements to the Moss Lane island will be made when reinstated.

· Phase 3, August 23rd until the end of the month: Temporary two way traffic lights on Woodford Road away from Syddal Road junction towards the A555.

There is likely to be further work on Moss Lane and possibly Woodford Road, to take place either during September or future school holiday periods.

We’ll be getting a new pedestrian crossing outside Gatley Station sometime in the next year.

The old crossing over Gatley Road will be replaced with a Puffin Crossing.

Although the details are yet to be finalised, we’re hoping to get, at the request of Pam King, improved lighting under the railway bridge.

Other planned safety improvements include a widening of the pavement by Springfield Road and an anti-skid surface approaching the lights.

All this is subject to some revision - I’ll pass on more details when I have them.

Back in January I reported on a meeting I’d had with Mrs Yule, Headmistress at Lady Barn House School in Cheadle.

We were looking at the traffic problems caused by school traffic coming onto Schools Hill to collect and drop off kids.

At the time, the most realistic option to explore seemed to be a “walking bus” - where the pupils walk in a line to and from a drop-off/collection point (Shiers Drive being the most promising).

Today I’ve received a letter from Mrs Yule saying that the option has been examined but the school feels it’s neither safe nor practical given the location of the school and the number of children .

Whilst I’m disappointed, I of course appreciate that the safety of the children must be of prime concern.

Pam and I will continue looking for opportunities to improve the traffic and parking situations around the whole of our area, including our schools.

Pam and I are looking closely at a number of areas in Cheadle & Gatley that need a bit more than just the odd patch or two.

As always, money’s the main issue.  There are two or three places we can get money from, but they’re all limited.

For example, there’s an area of worn tarmac on Old Hall Road (near the junction with Pendlebury Road, just north of the grass triangle).   Patching up the individual potholes won’t do much good - the patches will wear away in no time.  It needs to be properly resurfaced.

Resurfacing that section of road (maybe 20 yards long) will cost about £11,000.  That money could come from the Council’s central budget - which has to cover the whole borough - or it could come from our local ward funds that the councillors control (as local councillors, we have no say over the central budget - we can ask, but we can’t force anything to happen).

Taking it from local funds is quite possible, but we only get £21,000 a year for the whole ward for road repairs, so that’s over half the annual budget gone. (Just fixing normal potholes always comes from the central budget, it’s the bigger works that are the issue).

These are the sorts of decisions we  have to sort out and Pam in particular is working hard on them at the moment.

The areas we’re looking at include that section of Old Hall Road, the pavement on Brooklyn Crescent and the section of road at the junction of Beech Avenue and Burnside Road.

None of these will be fixed before the Autumn, and I can’t promise anything for sure, but I’m hopeful we can get something sorted with at least two of those three - and hopefully some more besides - over the next few months.

I’ve been contacted by a resident concerned that a new road being built immediately north of North Cheshire Jewish Primary on St Ann’s Road North would be connecting up with Cheadle Royal - our local, and not-too-small business park.

He was quite rightly worried about traffic from Cheadle Royal coming onto St Ann’s Road North and then Silverdale Road etc. and clogging up our residential streets rather than sticking to the main roads.

I’ve asked around and I’m glad to say that doesn’t appear to the case.  When Cheadle Royal was being built, there was a clear undertaking that traffic wouldn’t be coming onto St Ann’s Road North and that still stands.

There’s currently one sort-of-road onto the site from St. Ann’s Road North.  It’s needed for emergency vehicles, which might not otherwise be able to gain access if the one proper entrance was solid with traffic.  It’s got a gate across the end, which isn’t normally opened.

This new road by the primary school, I’m told, isn’t to go onto Cheadle Royal but goes to a new sports facility the primary school is constructing and was approved by councillors a while back (before my time).

We’ll keep an eye on this, but it all seems above board so far.

View St Ann’s Road in a larger map

From the Council:

Stockport residents are being encouraged to complete a questionnaire on the Council’s Highways and Transport Services.

The survey, running for the third year, includes questions on the condition of roads and footpaths, walking and cycling, congestion and local bus services, and takes about 20 minutes to complete. A random sample of 4,500 local households has started to receive a National Highways and Transport Public Satisfaction survey.

The deadline for returning the surveys is 16th July. People’s views in Stockport can be compared directly with those in 100 other local authorities in England and North Wales as all the questions are the same. The survey is a joint initiative between the National Highways & Transport Network and regional Highways Service Improvement Group. The results are expected to be published by the late summer.

From the Council:

Stockport Council will be carrying out essential road maintenance work in a bid to enhance the highways for borough residents. Due to essential road maintenance work there will be road lane restrictions on the A34 in Cheadle & Gatley on Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th June between Broadway and the Manchester boundary, from 6.00am to 6.00pm each day.

The work on the A34 will involve restrictions to the nearside verge lane on Saturday 19th June, with the lane closures moving to the outside central reserve lanes on Sunday 20th June.

For more information call the Council’s Roadworks Hotline on 0161 217 6111 or visit www.stockport.gov.uk

Like many others, I’ve been frustrated that the large pothole at the bottom of Massie Street that should have been repaired weeks ago.

Our Council highways officer, Rod Camblin, has told us (at Cheadle Area Committee) that there was some confusion with the contractors, but since then it’s still not been fixed.

Pam and I are chasing this up and I very much hope it will get done swiftly.

Pam and I always try to keep an eye on graffiti and other street issues around the ward - and it helps even more when people let us know about problems, so please do.

This morning I reported some trees that are overhanging the section of Kingsway on the new cycle route 558 (on the Gatley side, between Foxland Road and Cheadle Royal).  Some are low enough to be a real nuisance for cyclists and pedestrians, so I’ve asked for those to be cut back.

I’ve also asked for another of our regular clean-ups of graffiti on the underpasses beneath the Cheadle Royal roundabout (which, by the way, present a great route to Bruntwood Park by foot or bicycle).

Old Hall Road in Gatley has suffered especially badly following the big freeze earlier in the year.  A few potholes popped up in January, which we got fixed quickly.  Then more came, then even more.

Currently the section of Old Hall Road by Pendlebury Road and in front of the old cemetary wall has big chunks of the surface stripped away.

Pam King and I are looking for funding to get the work done, either from the council’s central budget or from our (much more limited) ward budget, and we should have more on that soon.

But there were a few particularly bad potholes - not just the surface scraped away but the whole road gone and loose stones at the bottom.

On Wednesday evening we reported those to the council and I was pleased to see them repaired within 24 hours - as the most serious potholes should be.

The work on Gatley Bridge has been completed ahead of schedule (with the potholes on Gatley Hill filled in to the bargain).

The big problem we had at the start was the way the temporary traffic lights had been set up.  A lot of vehicles going north on Styal Road wanted to turn into Church Road, but had to wait for southbound traffic to clear.  This meant, at the start, long northbound queues as only a few cars got through at each lights change.

Pam King and I  quickly contacted the Council and explained the problem.  They liased with the contractors.  It would probably have been better if they’d put a “no right turn except for buses” in right away for northbound traffic at Styal Road, but they wanted to try a voluntary diversion first.

I was very pleased to see that the new bollard on the corner of Gatley Road and Old Hall Road was installed on Tuesday.  This was something I worked with the Council on after a lorry clipping the kerb shot a fragment of concrete that hit our crossing lady in the throat (luckily, she wasn’t injured).

Sadly, though, the Nat West bank on the opposite side of Gatley Road will be closing in August.  Wasn’t it Nat West who ran a big advertising campaign about how important their branch network was?

Our neighbourhood police were out on the South Park Road estate this evening.  150 drivers using the estate as a cut-through were given a warning notice.  They’ll be out again soon on a morning rush-hour, and periodically after that, fining offenders where needed.

Here’s the text of the letter the police have been handing out to offending motorists.

In response to numerous complaints from residents of South Park Road estate and local councillors,

Stockport West Neighbourhood Policing team have been asked to look at the problem of motorists contravening the no motor vehicle signs except for access onto the South Park Road estate, Gatley.

These signs are clearly situated on the A34 southbound restricting access off the A34 into the estate and as vehicles come off the M60 onto the A34 southbound.

 

During rush hour vehicles contravening these signs can be in excess of 300 vehicles per hour, the signs are placed there as part of traffic calming measures to reduce traffic on this residential estate.

You have just contravened these signs and as such are liable to prosecution and to be given a non-endorsable £30 ticket.

 

On this occasion you are being given a warning not to contravene these signs. The residents of this estate should not have to put up with inconsiderate drivers using their estate as a cut through.

This situation will continue to be monitored and if it does not improve fixed penalty notices will be given to motorists

 

 

Stockport West Neighbourhood Policing Team

Cheadle Heath Police Station

Adswood

 

Tel 856 9770

Some good news.  I reported a while back that Parks and Recs had a cunning plan to get the money to repair the potholes on Gatley Hill (which isn’t a public highway so isn’t covered by normal pothole repairs to the roads).

The idea was that the people who are repairing the bridge over Gatley Brook would pay Parks & Recs a fee to keep their vehicles on Gatley Hill and that could be used to repair the potholes.

I’ve just got back from Cubs, where I saw the potholes mostly fixed, including the big trenches near the car park.  Good to see it sorted.

The Council has been listening to the views of all residents on Coniston Road, Gatley and nearby roads about the parking restrictions that should apply.

The latest proposals, which I’ve discussed with Graham Price at the Council, will be sent out to residents for comment and, if people are willing to go with them, we should be able to get them in place once the legal process has been completed.

A couple of months ago, the Government advice on 20mph zones changed to make it easier (and cheaper) to implement them.

I’d like to have a look at Cheadle & Gatley and see where it would help to have 20mph zones implemented - I’d like your thoughts on what we should do.

How they work

A 20mph zone typically has signs on posts and marks on the road to remind people.  It need not have physical traffic calming (e.g. road humps).  The police generally don’t enforce 20mph zones, but research and our experience suggests they do reduce speeds significantly.

Where the average speed of traffic is around 30mph, just having a 20mph zone can cut it by 6-7mph.  That doesn’t mean everyone drives slowly, of course, but it does seem to genuinely improve the situation.

What should we do?

My feeling is that we should have more 20mph zones.  At the moment, the default speed limit along residential streets is 30mph - I’d like to see that default reduced to 20mph and then keep it at 30 only where there’s a good reason to do so.

What do you think?  Should we have a broad 20mph limit across most residential streets; or some smaller areas at 20mph, or perhaps the limit should stay at 30mph.  Let me know.

Having got on my bike and cycled round some of the Gatley’s lakes estate today, I’ve reported the following potholes for repair:

- Pothole outside 33 Foxland Road, Gatley
- Pothole outside 49 Foxland Road, Gatley
- Potholes around edges of patch on Foxland Rd, Gatley at junction with Appleby Road
- Potholes on Borrowdale Avenue, Gatley between Troutbeck Rd and Keswick Ave
- Potholes on Kendal Drive, Gatley - 3 potholes outside 2 Kendal Drive
- Pothole outside 26 Buttermere Road, Gatley
- Line of potholes outside 31-33 Buttermere Road, Gatley
- Pothole outside 21 Buttermere Road, Gatley
- Pothole outside 23 Buttermere Road, Gatley

Coming back home this evening, I noticed the Council have removed the tree stumps outside 20 Torkington Road, 32 Torkington Road and 3 Springfield Road in Gatley (hopefully the one by 6 Barcheston in Cheadle’s also been removed, but I didn’t see it this evening).

This is work Pam King and I decided to fund from our ward budget - to remove the four stumps - which were partially blocking the pavement - and repair the pavement costs around £2,500 (a little over 10% of our budget for the year).

Thanks to Peter Pollard and his team at Stockport Council for doing the work.

Here’s what I’ve been told about works on Gatley Bridge, at the bottom of Gatley Hill on Church Road:

Waterproofing and repair works are due to commence at the above bridge on 19th April.

The waterproofing works will be carried out in two stages with two phase signals on Styal Road and Church Road. A single lane of traffic will be provided on Church Road at all times. The traffic management will be manually operated during peak hours to ensure that excessive queues do not form. The contract duration is 8 weeks.

The principal contractor undertaking the works is Bethell Construction Ltd.

I’ve reported two potholes on Church Road, up by the junction with Styal Road.

The section of Old Hall Road that’s bad now (despite three potholes being repaired back in January) is being looked at for proper repair of the whole section, rather than just doing individual potholes.  That takes a bit longer to happen, but the end result is better.

I’m also chasing up on some other potholes including on Gainford Avenue and the annoying one on Kingsway northbound, where the road passes Kingsway school.

Pam King and I have been putting the case for Wensley Road and Wensleydale Road in Cheadle to have their pavements properly redone for quite a while, and I’ve now had confirmation that both roads will be done in this coming financial year.

I’m very pleased about this.  Not only are the pavements in particularly poor condition, but there are a lot of elderly people living in the area for whom the pavements cause real problems.

Of course there are many other pavements that need attention too, and we’ll continue to press for those to be done.  These are difficult time, financially, but the Lib Dems have been able to find money for work on local roads that makes at least some of these fixes possible.

Area Committees are this week considering a Lib Dem proposal to help with street cleaning.

Some roads are so full of cars that they almost never get a proper clean, no matter how often sweepers are sent round.

Under this plan, the Council might say, for example, that a road will be  cleaned on the first Tuesday of each month.  Leaflets would be delivered to remind residents and signs put up on lampposts.

A traffic order would be in place, making it illegal for vehicles to park on the road for that day (or perhaps just for a couple of hours).  Tickets could be handed out if needed.

The road would then be cleaned at that time (possibly it could be co-ordinated with gully cleaning too).

This seems to me like a sensible approach for the relatively small number of roads where it’s currently a real problem.

Following a letter from Mark Hunter requesting action, PC Gareth Pemberton has been spending time at the one-way side-road running alongside Councillor Lane near Demmings Road.

PC Pemberton reported that incidents of people driving the wrong way along the road seem to have reduced, and he’s continuing to visit the location and check with local residents.

Coming to Cheadle Area Committee next Tuesday is a proposal Pam King and I have been working on for a little while - to use our local budget to remove some of the tree stumps that are currently obstructing and damaging the pavements.

These come from trees planted decades ago, when presumably no-one realised what would happen after years of growth.

The proposal is to remove the stumps (two on Torkington Road in Gatley, one on Springfield Road, Gatley and one on Barcheston Road, Cheadle), and to tarmac properly over the area.

The cost of doing this for the four stumps is estimated at £2,500.

At Thursday’s Gatley Village Partnership, we had some discussion about parking on Stonepail Road.

The Council have been looking at improvements and, at the request of the Partnership some months ago, have included it in a wider look at the village parking and traffic situation instead of taking it on its own.

I’m hopeful we can find the right balance.  As with so many parking issues, we’ve got two competing concerns.

On the one hand, many people quite rightly want more parking in Gatley (hence all the work councillors and council officers have been putting into looking at ways to get a new car park behind the Tatton cinema site).  We’re cautious about putting down further restrictions to make the parking situation even worse.

On the other hand, there are genuine and important concerns about safety.  Ideally, we wouldn’t have parking at the top of Old Hall Road, for example.

Stonepail Road has just this issue.  It’s used extensively for parking and, being narrow, can’t take two vehicles passing when cars are parked down the side.

Elderly people from Guardian Lodge in particular need to cross to the bus stop on Church Road, and others are concerned about the general safety on the road - one of those “accident waiting to happen” concerns.

We’re hoping to agree plans for general improvements to Gatley village in the next few weeks, and I aim to make some changes to Stonepail Road as part of those.

Our local Police Inspector - Steve Gilbertson - has also agreed to bring figures on actual accidents reported to the police on Stonepail Road to the next partnership meeting.

As part of the rolling programme of upgrades, two of the pelican crossings in Gatley will be replaced by puffins: the crossing by the Station and the one by the Tatton.

In addition to being newer and smarter, puffin crossings have cameras mounted at the top of the lights that track pedestrians and traffic, ensuring that pedestrians have enough time to cross the road (which can be a problem especially at the station crossing) and cars aren’t waiting around for too long when there’s no-one crossing the road.

Cheadle already has puffin crossings in the village centre.

For some years, the idea of making part of Gatley’s Church Road one-way has been floating around.   It was looked at by the Council sometime around 2006 and, at the request of the Gatley Village Partnership and Traders’ Association, another look was taken.

The findings were presented at the Gatley Village Partnership meeting last night.

The proposal was to make Church Road one way (southbound only) between Gatley Road and Gatley Green.

The main benefit would be 16 additional parking spaces.

However, several disadvantages were identified.

• would cause problems for buses, especially high frequency route 11 which would have to be diverted.
• extra pressure on Park Road/Altrincham Road junction with a lot more people turning right.
• possible loss of business for traders, as people who currently come into the village from the Wythenshawe/Heald Green side might not bother if they have to drive all the way around.
• possible faster traffic speed down Church Road - cars tend to drive faster when there’s no traffic coming the other way to worry about.
• A longer route for people living around Gatley Green and nearbye roads to go towards Cheadle.

Overall, it was felt that the benefits of a one-way system weren’t clear enough to move forwards with it at the moment.

Other improvements to Gatley are being considered, which I’ll write about separately.

I’ve had reports of an increased problem with dog mess on Greenbank Road, Gatley - probably not helped by the road being used as parking for the vetinary surgery on the corner.

Dog mess is a difficult problem to solve, but we need to do our best to keep on top of it.  It isn’t acceptable for owners to let their dogs foul in private gardens, or not to cleanup after them.

Enforcement normally comes down to getting the dog wardens to visit the area more regularly, hopefully warn a few people or even hand out fines, and get the message across.

I’ve ask the Council to get the dog wardens visiting Greenbank Road more often and I’ll be chasing this up.

Regular readers will know that I’ve put a fair amount of time into sorting out the flooding/pooling issues around Cheadle & Gatley since my election in September.  I think it’s going pretty well.

Over the last few months, several serious and, in some cases, longstanding problems have been fixed including Gatley Green, Longley Lane, Styal Road (by Church Road), outside Hewitt’s on Gatley Road and opposite the exit to Gatley Medical Centre  on Old Hall Road.

I’ve been targetting those places where there’s a problem first (i.e. not just blocked grids, but blocked grids causing regular problems with pooling or flooding).

I’ve now been assured that the following, all of which I raised with the Council, are either already cleared (in one or two cases) or will be cleared soon:

• Bottom of West Drive, Gatley
• Corner of Oakwood Avenue and Gatley Road, by railway bridge
• Outside 40 Altrincham Road
• Opposite BP garage on Stockport Road, Cheadle
• Between Oak Road and Manchester Road on Stockport Road, Cheadle
• Bottom of Schools Hill, Cheadle

The corner of Kingsway and Gatley Road is also being looked at.  This has been cleared more than once in the recent past and keeps on coming back, suggesting there’s a more serious problem that needs attention.

Pam and I have been wrestling with the issue of parking enforcement, especially in Cheadle, where most the complaints arise.

I’ll write more about it when I’ve time, but for now I’m pleased to report a boost for this week with two parking attendents spending the week in Cheadle village centre.

This is not a permanent measure - we’re all looking for longer-term fixes - but we’re hoping it will make a difference.

The clock at the junction of Church Road, Gatley Road and Northenden Road in the centre of Gatley has stopped - perhaps due to the cold weather.  Pam and I have report it to the Council to be repaired, though depending on the fault, it may take a little while to get it back up and keeping good time again.

Kevin Melling, from Stockport Council, and Cllr Dave White have been visiting every Local Area Committee meeting to get feedback from councillors on how Stockport can improve its response to freezing weather conditions as we saw for nearly a month from around 18th December.

The Tories have been attacking the Council for not gritting more pavements.  Odd when you consider that Stockport did better than most and that you can’t just scatter grit on pavements like you can on roads.  It’s the action of cars grinding the grit into the ice on busy roads that actually does the job.

That doesn’t happen on pavements - you need to clear the snow and ice first and - as many of us found over the cold period - that can be a very slow and laborious process.

But I guess making that sort of attack is easier than understanding the issues and coming up with serious suggestions.

I had two comments:

1. If we can get more business owners to clear in front of their premises, the people clearing pavements could focus on those used by elderly people: paths from sheltered accommodation and old peoples’ homes, and to medical centres and doctors’surgeries for example.  We need to counter the misinformation being spread in the media about the risk of being sued.
2. Where residential roads have steep slopes (e.g. Kendal Drive, Eskdale, Rydal Close, Airedale Close), they should be given higher priority on the gritting list.

Overall, and having seen and heard from many other areas around the country, I believe Stockport did better than most at keeping the roads clear, resuming refuse and recycling services as quickly as possible and getting help to the most vulnerable.

Many Council staff went above and beyond the call of duty in working to keep everything moving.

But, of course, that doesn’t mean no improvements can be made and I was very pleased to see Cllr White and Kevin Melling taking the initiative to go out and ask for feedback.

On Wednesday morning I met with Mrs Yule, the Headteacher at Lady Barn House School on School’s Hill, Cheadle.  This followed concern from local residents about traffic and parking around the school at dropping off and picking up times.

Hopefully I’ll find the time to write more detail about what the school has been doing, but for now I’ll give the summary.

The school does make efforts to minimise the problems.  In the morning children are dropped off in the car par, in the afternoon picking up is obviously trickier as the kids can’t always be there at just the right time.

Exiting the school, there are “no right turn” signs, though some parents ignore them.

The school encourages parents to be responsible when parking and driving, and are very happy for the police to hand out tickets to those breaking the law.  They regularly send out letters to parents reminding them of the need to be responsible.

Of course, most people who live near a school recognise that traffic increases for short periods in the mornings and afternoons - it’s a problem every school in the country has.

And, as Inspector Gilbertson told us at the Area Committee meeting, when you have parents parking illegally and willingly accepting the fine, with no intention of changing their behaviour, there’s little police or the school can do.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t improve the situation in this case.  I was keen to look at ways the Council could help the school to stop traffic needing to come onto Schools Hill at all.

We’re going to explore whether there’s a safe and affordable way to have parents parking off Schools Hill (perhaps Cheadle Baths or the Sainsburys/John Lewis car park) and be bussed or walked to school from there.

For both the school and the Council there are issues and challenges to be overcome; but we’re talking about it, and that’s got to be a positive start.

I’ve reported the following paving in need of repair in Cheadle & Gatley village centres:

- At the corner of Church Road and Oakwood Avenue, by the Co-op, Gatley
- Outside the Sadagar Restaurant, 43-45 Church Road, Gatley
- Outside 57 Church Road, Gatley
- Damaged pavement around the edge of the BT cover in front of Warwick Mall, High Street, Cheadle.

Spot any more - let me know.

Icy weather has a nasty habit of creating new potholes in our roads, so Cllr Pam King and I have decided to try to visit every road in the ward and check for potholes, to catch them early.

Today I cycled around a sixth of Cheadle & Gatley ward (took a couple of hours, including a few stops to chat to people).  From that, I got this list of potholes below, some of which are new and some older:

Some potholes around Cheadle (plus the first, which is in Gatley)

Broken tarmac around grid, between 167 and 169 Gatley Road, Gatley.

Pothole, centre of Gatley Road, Cheadle 20m west of junction with Wilmslow Road (outside Tarantella restaurant).

Potholes outside numbers 8, 14 and 22 Hall Street, Cheadle

Pothole on Manchester Road, Cheadle where it passes over M60 (looks like it was marked up a while back but never repaired).

Potholes on Newboult Road, Cheadle at junction with Stockport Road, outside number 2 and a series of potholes outside numbers 20-26.

Potholes on New Hey Road, Cheadle outside number 62 (by kerb), 57 and numbers 63-67.

Pothole on Bulkeley Road, Cheadle by kerb outside number 55

Potholes outside numbers 14 and 21 Oakfield Avenue, Cheadle

Potholes on Oak Road, Cheadle outside numbers 5, 7, 15 and 19

Pothole at the junction of Whitegates Road and Ashfield Road, Cheadle (south east corner)

Pothole on Whitegates Road, Cheadle outside the garage of number 20.

Pothole outside 9 Alder Road, Cheadle.

Let us know if you spot any more potholes and dodgy pavements; we’ll be trying to get round the whole ward in the next week or two.

Since the snow started falling before Christmas I’ve been trying to keep people up to date with what’s happening in Stockport with gritting of roads and pavements, schools opening and refuse collections.  I’ve had lots of comments from a wide range of people - many concerned that the Council isn’t doing enough to grit the roads and pavements they use.

I’ve also been seeing what’s happening elsewhere - it’s clear that the same sorts of comments are being made about pretty much every council in the country.

I’m quite sure that improvements can be made.  In Stockport I think there are ways we can improve the service to people on hilly residential roads (like Kendal Drive, Airedale Close  and Eskdale in my ward).  I also think we need to look at doing more to clear pavements in key areas - not only by shops but also near doctors’ surgeries, for example.  Along with Cllr Pam King and other councillors, we’ll be looking to make sure the Council learns those lessons.

But some of the complaints made against Stockport, and many other councils, do seem unfair to me, and I’ll try to explain why.

Gritting policies

Every council has a similar approach to gritting.  They have a list of priority routes (main roads, trunk roads, bus routes) that probably make up between 30% and 45% of the total road network.  Those get gritted first.

If those are done, and if there’s time, councils will then work down the list to minor roads, residential streets and cycle lanes.

In most cases, councils don’t get down to the lowest priority residential streets.  The main roads have to be gritted regularly (often twice a night in the worst conditions),, and they have to be gritted at the right time too.  It’s no use gritting in rain - the salt just gets washed away - and gritting too early will see the salt blown off the road before any snow arrives.

True, councils could buy more gritters, more salt and draft in more people.  That’s fine as long as we’re willing to pay higher council tax to fund it all - everything has a cost.  We’d also need to accept that other services would suffer.  If more of the people who normally collect our refuse are clearing snow, we’re going to have even less refuse collection.

Gritting isn’t a perfect solution

Gritting isn’t a perfect solution that magically clears snow and ice - as we all know.  Gritting works best on busy roads - passing traffic grinds the salt into the snow and ice, making it much more effective.  On quiet roads and pavements, just scattering salt may not do much at all.  (You’ll notice that clearing pavements normally involves shovelling the snow and ice away and then gritting the bare pavement to stop it reforming).

Pavements

Councils have no legal duty to clear snow and ice from pavements.  That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done (and Stockport has done it a lot in the town and district centres, along with some local centres).  But it does mean that clearing pavements comes after clearing the priority routes - which the Council does have a legal obligation to do as best it can.

In some other countries, householders are legally obliged to clear the pavement in front of their house if they’re able to.  In this country, nonsense in the media about the risks of being sued has scared a lot of decent people from doing even that.  Perhaps as a country we need to be looking at how we, as residents, can do more.

Steep slopes and grit bins

Where residential streets are on steep slopes, Stockport provides grit bins and has tried to refill them as often as it can (although clearing those priority routes takes precedence).

The system isn’t perfect.  There are places that, I would say, need grit bins but haven’t got them.  In others, bins are empty as the grit disappears as soon as it’s put in.

At least one council has put the locations of its grit bins on the Internet so people can find their nearest.  I’ve also heard suggestions of locking grit bins and having local volunteers in charge of them, to stop all the grit being pinched for private use - not sure how that would work in practice though.

I don’t think there are any obvious solutions, but I’m sure we can do better.

Running out of salt

Even just gritting priority routes, the country is now, we’re told, running out of salt.  The Government has ordered everyone to use less.  Hopefully this is an exceptional year and it’ll be another three decades before the next freeze like it, but we can’t be sure.

Had all the councils across the country started off gritting lots of residential roads and pavements, would we have run out of salt by now?  I don’t know, but we should bear it in mind.

Conclusion

I feel Stockport Council’s done pretty well.  The priority routes have been kept clear throughout the cold period.  Additional gritting has been done where possible.  Pavements have been cleared in the town, district and some local centres. Though disrupted, we’ve had more refuse collections than many other local councils and pretty much all our schools are now open.

But there is (in my opinion) room for improvement, especially  in clearing steep residential roads and pavements - though some of that may be a community effort rather than something we just leave to the Council.

Stockport Council have a new website up and running - simple, lightweight and giving you key information (currently which schools are closed tomorrow and what’s happening with refuse and recycling collections).

The website is www.stockportalert.org.uk

This is in addition to the standard Stockport Council website, which will also carry the information (but went down earlier this evening under the weight of traffic).

I’m back home after a couple of hours driving around Cheadle & Gatley to see how conditions are.  I made a point of visiting residential roads and spoke to quite a few people on the way.

Summary

• All the main roads are clear and, with light traffic, perfectly fine to drive down.  That includes Gatley Road, Altrincham Road, Park Road, Styal Road, Church Road, Kingsway, Cheadle High Street, Stockport Road, Manchester Road, Wilmslow Road, Delemere Road, Silverdale Road and Schools Hill.
• The bus services are running, with some delays.
• Metrolink in Manchester is running a slightly reduced service.
• At least some train services are running, but check before travelling.
• The pavements are mostly fine to walk on, with the snow still being powerdery (or cleared away in village centres).  Some, like Old Hall Road in Gatley, are getting a bit slippery so walk in the road.
• Nearly all the residential roads I visited (and it was quite a lot) are passable with care in a car.  The onlyserious  problems are on smaller residential roads with significant hills, such as Airedale Close in Cheadle.
• I’m really pleased to see that snow has been cleared from several of the hillier resedential roads including the hills on Kendal Drive, Rydal Close, Grasmere Road and Keswick Avenue.
• Refuse collections are going ahead on the larger roads, but not on smaller  residential roads.
• Recycling collections have been cancelled for today.

In a bit more detail

The roads I’ve driven or walked along today include in Cheadle:

Richmond Hill Road, Wensley Road, Marchbank Drive, Wensleydale Avenue, Airedale Close, Aysgarth Avenue, Oak Road, Oakfield Avenue, Brookfield Road, Broadway, Barcheston Road, Daylesford Road, Schools Hill, Grange Park Road, Brackenwood Drive, Mary Street, Lime Grove, Hall Street, Church Street,

In Gatley:

Firs Road, Linksway, Elm Road, Cedar Road, Burnside Road, Beech Avenue, Brookdale Road, Dingle Grove, Lorna Grove, Old Hall Road, Pendlebury Road, Frances Avenue, Springfield Road, Foxland Road, Delemere Road,Appleby Road, Gainford Avenue, Borrowdale Road, Ennerdale Drive, Kendal Drive, Eskdale, Langdale Close, Cartmel Close and St Anns Road North.

I’m happy the Council has cleared all the main roads and is doing a good job on the pavements in central areas.  I’m very pleased that many (though not all) of the steeper slopes on residential roads have been cleared.

All the grit bins I’ve checked have been empty, which is a concern I’ll be speaking to the Council about.  There are a few roads with significant slopes which could do with special attention too.

GMPTE Public Transport Information Alert

Please note this information was posted on GMPTE’s website at 0830.
6 January 2010

Severe weather update (0830)

GMPTE is advising passengers to expect further disruptions to bus and tram services today due to the ongoing severe weather conditions.

Passengers should allow extra time for journeys and use main roads to access bus services.
A list of current known service information is available below. Passengers are also advised to check www.stagecoachbus.com and www.firstgroup.com for service updates.

All Metrolink services are running to Piccadilly every 12 minutes. Passengers are advised to check www.metrolink.co.uk for the latest service information.

Rail passengers are advised to check www.nationalrail.co.uk for service updates before travelling.

For the latest advice from Greater Manchester Police, log on to www.gmp.police.uk.

I haven’t ventured out too far today - just walked into the village, so this isn’t a complete picture.

As far as I know:

• We’ve had around 10cm/4 inches of snow.
• The trains out from Manchester to Gatley aren’t currently running
• No planes are coming in or out of Manchester Airport at least until noon and the airport warns that some of the approach roads are difficult to pass.
• Lots of people walking into the village - all the snow makes the pavements less slippery, for now at least.
• The roads I’ve seen are passable with care in a car, though some people are having problems on the hills.
• Most of the local schools appear to be closed
• There’s no refuse or recycling collection today

See also my report on snow, travel and services for 6th Jan.

Here’s the latest from Stockport Council on gritting:

A Council spokesman, said: “During the recent cold weather the Council has worked around the clock to ensure that disruption is kept to a minimum.

A fleet of eight dedicated highway gritters supported by a fleet of smaller gritting vehicles, tippers and JCB’s are working relentlessly to address the worsening conditions.

Snow and ice gritting operations will continue to be undertaken on the Council’s priority and local feeder roads, which includes bus routes, this is in accordance with the Council’s winter maintenance policy which can be found at www.stockport.gov.uk/transportpolicy

The Council has approximately 300 tonnes of grit in stock which will last for up to eight days in freezing conditions. The Council is also keen to reassure residents that they are in constant contact with the suppliers to ensure that the grit levels will be maintained throughout the winter and further deliveries are expected.

The Council is also in regular contact with other Greater Manchester Authorities to discuss and monitor grit stocks. Road users are also advised to take extra care and refer to the Highways Agency for further advice on traffic disruption on motorways and trunk roads.”

Councillors have been told that gritting will continue on all the priority and local feeder routes but not on smaller residential roads. This is the agreed policy: in common with pretty much every local authority across the country, Stockport aims to keep the main roads and busier car parks and pavements clear.

I don’t know the reasoning behind that, but I would imagine it’s partly down to the amount of salt the Council has. At least one UK council is on the verge of running out of salt due to the severity of the conditions. Stockport has enough for another 8 days, we’re told, but the more roads gritted, the less long the grit will last for.

However, I’m still concerned about certain roads such as Eskdale, where the combination of ice, hills and a lack of grit bins are causing big problems for some residents. I’ve had some (limited) success in getting these gritted just before the New Year, but I don’t know whether we’ll be able to have them done again, or if that will even solve the problem, since grit is least effective when scattered on existing ice on low-traffic roads. We could really do with either more grit bins, or at least piles of grit left on the pavement in key locations.

See also my other posts on this issue, plus the comments made on each:

Report on snow, travel and services for 6th Jan

My experiences of snow and gritting in Stockport

Stockport’s been gritting over the weekend before Christmas

How’s Stockport done on gritting (26th Dec)

Ice in Stockport - now we need to tackle the cul-de-sacs

I’ve been out and about this evening in Cheadle and Gatley and as a result have reported the following:

Broken streetlight opposite 59 Broadway, Cheadle (near entrance to Kingsway School)
Broken streetlight outside 57 Broadway, Cheadle
Broken streetlight labelled “1″ on Arlington Rd, nr. junction with Broadway
The light at the centre of Broadway by the junction with Wilmslow Road isn’t working.
On Shiers Drive, streetlights 2,6 and 7 are not working.
Streetlight “2″ on the alleyway from Halstead Grove to Styal Road in Gatley isn’t working.

The streetsight for Arlington Road, Cheadle is barely visible due to hedge growing around it.

A pothole (depression) in Styal Road, Gatley by the junction with Church Road, need to be repaired.

I’ve just spent an hour driving around Gatley, having compared notes with Cllr Pam King on the issues we’re aware of.

The big issue right now is ice at the end of cul-de-sacs and some other low-traffic roads.  All the main roads and most through-residential roads are clear of ice (though some pavements are still icy).

Pam and I are very concerned that people - especially the elderly - living on these cul-de-sacs - might be trapped in their houses or risk serious injury by venturing out.

For example in Gatley:
- Saville Road is mostly clear but has two absolutely treacherous areas of ice near the end.
- Sevenoaks Road, Hyldavale Avenue, Lyntonvale Avenue, the top of Leyland Avenue, Brogden Drive, Brentwood Drive, Eskdale, Cartmel Close, Langdale Close, The Tarns, Kentmere Close, the top of Troutbeck Road, Birch Road, the top of West Drive and Penrhos Avenue are examples of dead-end roads which still have serious ice problems.
- Some through roads with naturally low traffic also have problems, including Heathfield Avenue, the western section of Borrowdale Avenue, Charnville Road, Connor Way, Highcrest Avenue and Halstead Grove.

Pam and I have asked for attention to be turned to these cul-de-sacs and low-traffic roads, perhaps either by gritting them or leaving piles of grit by the icy patches to be spread by residents.

Of course, a lot of work is going  on, especially trying to deal with the need to switch focus from the main roads to these smallest of residential streets- before probably switching back to the main roads for the next lot of snow forecast.

By the way, if anyone wants more information on how gritting works, when it doesn’t work and what the problems are, this piece on the BBC website is very good.

See also my other posts on this issue, plus the comments made on each:

Report on snow, travel and services for 6th Jan

What gritting was done on the night of 23rd December in Stockport?

My experiences of snow and gritting in Stockport

Stockport’s been gritting over the weekend before Christmas

How’s Stockport done on gritting (26th Dec)

Stockport ice and gritting update, 4th Jan

UPDATE: There are eight gritters working around the clock on roads around Stockport Borough.  There’s a long list of roads needing their attention from Marple to Gatley, Reddish to Woodford.  I’ve got the roads off Pendlebury Road, around Silverdale  Road/Kendal Drive/Borrowdale in Gatley and around Brackenwood Drive in Cheadle added to the list.  The Council isn’t able to guarantee a response time, but I’m assured everything is being done that can be done with current resources.

If you’ve other roads that need to be added, please let me  know and I’ll sort it out (I’m around for the next couple of days).

Returning home from my parents’ today I found all the main roads completely clear, except for my own (small residential) road which was slippier than ever.  It’s east-west so gets limited sunlight on the road itself at this time of year and the snow has turned into an inch of hard-packed ice.

The same issue has afflicted the pavements across large chunks of the Borough - many are now treacherous.

I’ve been sent these two pictures of Tumblewood Drive (off School’s Hill in Cheadle) where there was a similar problem.  Seven people spent two hours clearing ice from the road and it was hard work.

I spent half an hour trying to clear the ice from the road and pavement in front of my house, with very limited success.

The question for all of us is what, if anything, should the Council be doing about it.

The Council’s approach to gritting is (I’m told) set out in a policy document from 2006 and is similar to other local authorities up and down the country.  Stockport aims to grit all major and minor roads across the Borough as a matter of course, but not residential roads.  Key car parks and high-use pavements are also gritted, along with some other key locations such as the entrance to Stepping Hill Hospital.

So there are two issues.

First, did Stockport do what it set out to.

As I’ve written in other posts, my personal experience is that it did, despite some very tricky weather conditions (e.g. salt spread on the roads last Saturday was partially washed away by rain in the evening, so the same roads had to be re-done on Sunday).  Some clearly disagree with that.  As a councillor, I want to make sure the Council has done what it should have.

Second, should the Council do more than is currently in its policy?  Should it grit all roads and pavements automatically, or perhaps grit some residential roads - such as those on slopes?

This is a tricky one.  Travelling about today, I’m very concerned.  I’m sure there are many people  - not just the elderly - unable to get around safely right now.  Many more people are sensibly walking in the roads to avoid slipping, but on little roads like mine that doesn’t help much.

On the other hand, I don’t know how much more it would cost to do all that additional gritting.  We could end up spending millions of pounds and then not get another freeze like this one for two decades - I just don’t know.

In the New Year I will be looking to review exactly what was done and, with my fellow councillors and our council officers, explore the options for doing more.  I don’t feel I’m in a position to form a firm opinion until I’ve got a few more facts, but you can be sure I’ll be reporting back.

Of course, you are welcome to offer your opinions and concerns here.  I also suggest you contact our local MP, Mark Hunter, and - if you live outside Cheadle & Gatley ward - your own local councillors. (I can address general issues, but am not able to take up specific issues such as a particular problem road when it’s outside my ward).

See also my other posts on this issue, plus the comments made on each:

Report on snow, travel and services for 6th Jan

What gritting was done on the night of 23rd December in Stockport?

My experiences of snow and gritting in Stockport

Stockport’s been gritting over the weekend before Christmas

Ice in Stockport - now we need to tackle the cul-de-sacs

Stockport ice and gritting update, 4th Jan

I’ve been asked to post a list of roads being gritted.  This is the information I’ve received from the Council. I pass this on as-is.

An Ice Grit to routes 1-10 starting at 19.00 to 00.01 then a Snow Grit to routes 1-10 starting at 01.00 to 07.00

Plus designated Car Parks , Footpaths and Bus Routes

Routes 1-10 are:

PRIORITY ROUTE 1 - WINTER GRITTING

ECO CENTRE – TRAVEL TO TRAVIS BROW
TRAVIS BROW TO GEORGES ROAD
GEORGES ROAD
A6 TO MANCHESTER BOUNDARY
CROSSLEY ROAD TO BOUNDARY
A6 TO DISLEY BOUNDARY
A6 TO MACCLESFIELD ROAD
MACCLESFIELD ROAD TO POYNTON BOUNDARY
A6 TO GEORGES ROAD
BELMONT WAY INCLUDING ROUNDABOUT
LANCASHIRE HILL, TURN RIGHT
GREAT EGERTON STREET INCLUDING ROUNDABOUT
KNIGHTSBRIDGE
GREAT PORTWOOD STREET INCLUDING ROUNDABOUT
GREAT PORTWOOD STREET BACK TO OLD KING PUB
CROOKILEY WAY INCLUDING BOTH ROUNDABOUTS
CROOKILEY WAY BACK TO PORTWOOD
CARRINGTON ROAD
STOCKPORT ROAD WEST
STOCKPORT ROAD EAST
HYDE ROAD TO BOUNDARY
ASHTON ROAD TO DENTON BOUNDARY – BOTH SIDES OF ISLAND SAFEWAY
LINGARD LANE
BRINNINGTON ROAD – BOTH SIDES OF CENTRE ISLAND
TIVIOT WAY
MANCHESTER ROAD, RETURN TO BROADSTONE ROAD VIA MANCHESTER ROAD
SLIP ROAD ONTO MANCHESTER ROAD
BROADSTONE ROAD
GORTON ROAD TO STATION ROAD
STATION ROAD
GORTON ROAD TO BOUNDRY
THORNLEY LANE SOUTH
WINDMILL LANE TO GORTON ROAD
LONGFORD ROAD WEST TO BOUNDARY & BROWNING ROAD BUS ROUTE
HARROGATE ROAD & HOULDSWORTH STREET
LONGFORD ROAD TO MIILL LANE
REDDISH ROAD
SANDY LANE
RETURN TO BELMONT WAY, GRIT SLIP ROAD TO A6

PRIORITY ROUTE 2 - WINTER GRITTING

ECO CENTRE – TRAVEL TO STOCKPORT ROAD, CHEADLE HEATH
STOCKPORT ROAD INCLUDING ALL ROUNDABOUTS TO MANCHESTER ROAD
MANCHESTER ROAD TO BOUNDARY
A34 FROM MERSEY BRIDGE TO CHESHIRE BOUNDARY (INCLUDING ROUNDABOUTS & EXCLUDING SCHOOLS HILL)
A34 FROM CHESHIRE BOUNDARY TO MANCHESTER BOUNDARY
HIGH STREET
GATLEY ROAD
NORTHENDEN ROAD
PARK ROAD, TURN LEFT
CHURCH ROAD, TURN LEFT
STYAL ROAD
FINNEY LANE – TURN LEFT
TO JOHN LEWIS ROUNDABOUT THEN RETURN TO ETCHELLS RD
ETCHELLS ROAD
TURVES ROAD, TURN LEFT
CHEADLE ROAD – TURN LEFT
SCHOOLS HILL & ALL ROUNDABOUT AND TO JOHN LEWIS ROUNDABOUT
SCHOOLS HILL DUAL CARRIAGEWAY & RETURN TO WILMSLOW RD
WILMSLOW ROAD TO BROADWAY
BROADWAY TO A34
TRAVEL BACK TO WILMSLOW ROAD VIA SCHOOLS HILL
WILMSLOW ROAD TO HIGH STREET
TRAVEL BACK TO BROADWAY VIA GATLEY ROAD AND A34
BROADWAY TO WILMSLOW ROAD ( ISLANDS – SLIP ROUTES )
TRAVEL BACK TO ETCHELLS ROAD – WILMSLOW ROAD
TO HANDFORTH BOUNDARY
STANLEY ROAD TO FIRST ROUNDABOUT – STOP GRITTING
TRAVEL VIA A34 TO SCHOOLS HILL ROUNDABOUT
NORTHBOUND OFF AND ON SLIP ROADS

PRIORITY ROUTE 3 - WINTER GRITTING

COUNCILLOR LANE, TRAVEL TO A34
ON & OFF RAMP AT SCHOOLS HILL ROUNDABOUT
GROVE LANE TO CHESTER ROAD
CHESTER ROAD TO BOUNDARY DEANWATER
CHESTER ROAD TO POYNTON BOUNDARY
WOODFORD ROAD
MOSS LANE
ACRE LANE
JENNY LANE
BRAMHALL LANE SOUTH
BRIDGE LANE
JACKSONS LANE
DEAN LANE, TURN LEFT, STOP GRITTING
CHESTER ROAD, TURN RIGHT TO GRUNDEY ST GRIT TO A6
CHESTER ROAD TO JACKSONS LANE
BRAMHALL MOOR LANE TO A6, RETURN TO CHESTER ROAD
CHESTER ROAD TO POYNTON BOUNDARY, STOP GRITTING
ACK LANE EAST
ACK LANE WEST
RAVENOAK ROAD
MANOR ROAD
CARRWOOD ROAD TO BRAMHALL LANE SOUTH, STOP GRITTING
STATION ROAD, CHEADLE HULME
MELLOR ROAD, FULL LENGTH TURN IN CARPARK
ALBERT ROAD
HULME HALL ROAD
CHURCH ROAD
GILL BENT ROAD, STOP GRITTING

PRIORITY ROUTE 4 - WINTER GRITTING

ECO CENTRE – TRAVEL TO MILLGATE
MILLGATE
CHURCHGATE
SPRING GARDENS
HALL STREET
OFFERTON LANE
MARPLE ROAD
STOCKPORT ROAD
STATION ROAD
BRABYNS BROW
LOWER FOLD
GLOSSOP ROAD TO BOUNDRY (STOP GRITTING)
ARKWRIGHT ROAD
STRINES ROAD TO BOUNDRY & STATION ROAD(STOP GRITTING)
STRINES ROAD FROM ARKWRIGHT ROAD
STOCKPORT ROAD TO STATION ROAD
HOLLINS LANE
OLDKNOW ROAD
COMPSTALL ROAD
COMPSTALL BROW
COWLISHAW BROW
COMPSTALL ROAD
STOCKPORT ROAD
SCHOOL BROW
BERRYCROFT
HARRY TOWN
BREDBURY GREEN
GORSEY BROW
HIGHER BENTS LANE
LOWER BENTS LANE
GEORGE LANE
BARRACK HILL
HATHERLOW
OTTERSPOOL ROAD
DOOLEY LANE
OFFERTON ROAD
TORKINGTON ROAD TO A6 (STOP GRITTING)

PRIORITY ROUTE 5 - WINTER GRITTING

ECO CENTRE TO BIRD HALL LANE
BIRDHALL LANE
EDGELEY ROAD TO STOCKPORT ROAD. TURN RIGHT
GRIT TO WOOLPACK. TURN LEFT
GRIT BOTH SIDES OF WOOLPACK BRIDGE & J1 ROUNDABOUT
GRIT CHESTERGATE TO KING STREET WEST
WOOD STREET. TURN LEFT
GRIT BRINKSWAY TO ROCKS
EDGELEY ROAD. MORRISONS TO A6
EDWARD STREET
WATERLOO ROAD (TURN LEFT)
HOPES CARR (TURN RIGHT)
HIGHER HILLGATE
BRAMHALL LANE
BRAMHALL LANE SOUTH. TO ROUNABOUT AT B/PARK
LADYBRIDGE ROAD
ADSWOOD ROAD
LOWFIELD ROAD
LONGSHUT LANE
HEMPSHAW LANE
ST.MARYS WAY (BOTH SIDES)
LONGSHUT LANE WEST
SHAW HEATH
KING STREET WEST
HEATON LANE. TURN RIGHT & GRIT GEORGES RD TO RDBT
TRAVIS BROW
DIDSBURY ROAD
BURNAGE LANE TO BOUNDARY
KINGSLEIGH ROAD
MAULDETH ROAD
BANKHALL ROAD
MOORSIDE ROAD
THORNFIELD ROAD
HEATON MOOR ROAD
SCHOOL LANE
WHITEHILL INDUSTRIAL ESTATE
GREG STREET TO REDDISH ROAD
NELSTROP ROAD
CARNFORTH ROAD (ALL)
MARBURY ROAD
KESWICK ROAD
SHAW HEATH (LONGSHUT LANE TO BRAMHALL LANE)
ADSWOOD LANE EAST
ADSWOOD LANE WEST
GARNERS LANE
*WOODSMOOR LANE (DO NOT CROSS RAILWAY CROSSING)
MOORLAND ROAD
KENNERLEY ROAD

PRIORITY ROUTE 6 - WINTER GRITTING

LEYLAND STREET, TURN LEFT AT BOTTOM
LITTLE EGERTON STREET
BRIDGE STREET – BOLLARD!!
UNDERBANK – BOLLARD!!
CHESTERGATE – BOLLARD!!
DAW BANK TO VIADUCT STREET
BUS STATION – ALL LANES
ROCK ROW
PETERSGATE – PART
HIGH STREET
WELLINGTON STREET
MARKET PLACE
LOWER HILLGATE – BOLLARD!!
UNDERBANK, RETURN TO HILLGATE VIA PETERSGATE
HILLGATE TO EDWARD STREET
PICCADILLY TO PETERSGATE
DUKE STREET
REST OF PETERSGATE TO A6
WELLINGTON STREET TO HOPES CARR
RAILWAY ROAD AND STATION ROAD (GRAND CENTRAL)
EXCHANGE STREET
MERSEY SQUARE VIA BUS STATION
PORT STREET
BRIDGEFIELD STREET
WARREN STREET
CORPORATION STREET
NEWBRIDGE LANE
BREDBURY TIP REFUSE PLANT
MIDDLESEX ROAD
THE LINK
NORTHWAY
BLACKBERRY LANE INCLUDING BUS TERMINUS
NORTHUMBERLAND ROAD
NEW ZEALAND ROAD

PRIORITY ROUTE 7 - WINTER GRITTING

DELAMERE ROAD, GATLEY
SILVERDALE ROAD
ST ANNES ROAD NORTH
BROWN LANE
OUTWOOD ROAD (ALL)
BOLSHAW ROAD
CROSS ROAD
HIGHFIELD ROAD, CHEADLE
HEATHBANK ROAD
QUEENS ROAD
BUCKINGHAM ROAD
ORRISHMERE ROAD
QUEENS ROAD TO WEAK BRIDGE
RADNORMERE DRIVE
DEMMINGS ROAD – COUNCILLOR LANE TO WEAK BRIDGE
ST LESMO ROAD, EDGELEY
NORTHGATE ROAD
AVONDALE RD (PART) – BUS ROUTE
YORK ST (PART) – BUS ROUTE
WORRAL ST (PART) – BUS ROUTE
LOMAS ST (PART) – BUS ROUTE
CASTLE ST (PART) – BUS ROUTE
GRENVILLE STREET
BLOOM STREET
CHATHAM STREET – GRENVILLE ST TO KING ST WEST
DALE STREET TO BERLIN ROAD
HEATON ROAD, HEATON MOOR
PARSONAGE ROAD
GREEN LANE (PART)
ALEXANDRA ROAD
ASHBURN ROAD
BOWERFOLD LANE
GREEN LANE (PART) TO ALEXANDRA RD
CLIFTON ROAD
STATION ROAD
CRAIG ROAD
LANGHAM ROAD

PRIORITY ROUTE 8 - WINTER GRITTING

GRANGE ROAD
RINGMORE ROAD
DEANMOOR ROAD
MARSHAM ROAD
MOSTYN ROAD
LYNDHURST AVENUE
HARLECH DRIVE
CAVENDISH ROAD
STATION STREET
HATHERLOW LANE
POPLAR GROVE – INCLUDING BUS TERMINALS
DIALSTONE LANE
BANKS LANE
TURNCROFT LANE – FULL LENGTH
GRAHAM ROAD
LUDLOW ROAD
BIDIFORD ROAD
ILFRACOMBE ROAD
WOODLANDS DRIVE
WOODLANDS PARK ROAD
CURZON ROAD
LISBURNE LANE – ALL ROUNDABOUT
BLACKSTONE ROAD
MALLOWDALE ROAD
ALFRETON ROAD
LISBURNE LANE
HEMPSHAW LANE TO ST MARY’S WAY & CHRISTIE STREET
MILE END LANE

PRIORITY ROUTE 9 - WINTER GRITTING

COMMERCIAL ROAD, HAZEL GROVE
BOSDEN FOLD ROAD
HAZELWOOD ROAD (FULL LENGTH)
BRINKBURN ROAD
CLARENDON ROAD
TORKINGTON ROAD (TO WINDLEHURST ROAD)
WINDLEHURST ROAD TO A6
ANDREW LANE, HIGH LANE
WINDLEHURST ROAD, HIGH LANE
UPPER HIBBERT LANE, TURN RIGHT
CHURCH LANE
WATERSIDE
THORNCLIFFE ROAD
BRAMHAM ROAD
HAWK GREEN ROAD (INCLUDING BUS TERMINAL)
HIBBERT LANE, CHURCH LANE TO STOCKPORT ROAD
TOWN STREET, MARPLE BRIDGE
HOLLINS LANE
CONSTABLE DRIVE
HOGARTH RD (PART)
BONNINGTON RISE
LEIGHTON DRIVE
BENTON DRIVE
COTTAM CRESCENT
HOGARTH RD (PART)
LONGHURST LANE
KNOWLE ROAD TO SCHOOL
MOOREND ROAD
SHILOH ROAD TO MOORFIELD ARMS
CHURCH LANE (STOCKPORT ROAD TO RIDGE)
RIDGE ROAD
WYBERSLEY ROAD
CARR BROW
SANDERLING ROAD, OFFERTON
SHEARWATER RD TO BEAN LEACH RD
BEAN LEACH RD TO MARPLE RD
SHEARWATER RD TO SANDERLING RD
TURNSTONE ROAD

PRIORITY ROUTE 10 - WINTER GRITTING

MIDLAND ROAD
ZURICH ROAD
GENEVA ROAD
HANDLEY ROAD
BRAMHALL PARK ROAD TO CARRWOOD ROAD
FIR ROAD
SEAL ROAD
DAIRYGROUND ROAD
ROBINS LANE
NORTH PARK RD (BRAMHALL PARK TO MIDLAND RD)
NANGREAVE ROAD
HILLCREST ROAD
GUYWOOD LANE
MARSDEN ROAD
SANDY LANE
GREAVE
WERNETH ROAD - PART (TO PENNINE)
PENNINE ROAD
SMITHY GREEN
WERNETH ROAD – PART (TO PENNINE JNCT)
HIGHFIELD AVENUE
GOYT VALLEY ROAD
WILD STREET
VERNON ROAD
BROADWAY
OSBORNE STREET
KINGSWAY
WARD STREET

See also my other posts on this issue, plus the comments made on each:

Report on snow, travel and services 6th Jan

My experiences of snow and gritting in Stockport

Stockport’s been gritting over the weekend before Christmas

How’s Stockport done on gritting (26th Dec)

Ice in Stockport - now we need to tackle the cul-de-sacs

Having spent perhaps more time than most out and about in the last two days, I thought I’d share what I’ve seen around our area in the way that Stockport’s responded to the snow (which, as I write, is falling heavily again).

Please use the comments to share your experiences too.

I was out at around 9am on Monday morning.  At that time the roads weren’t all completely clear, but none that I drove on was especially slippery and all were easily passable.  I spent the day driving and walking around Gatley, Cheadle, Cheadle Hulme, Bramhall and Woodfood and found much the same story.

By late morning all the major and minor roads were pretty clear and people were being sensible on the residential roads.

I was also pleased to see refuse and recycling collections, along with public transport, going ahead pretty much as normal.

Grit boxes were being refilled (this morning I passed the lorry refilling the one by Gatley car park).

Some people have expressed concern about the amount of salt being spread on the  roads.  Others have seen the salt being spread.

Of course, one real question we politicians have to ask is how much money we want to devote to dealing with this bad weather, which may hit us once every year or two.  The Council can invest in more gritters and the like, but that means cutting something else or raising taxes - neither of which we take lightly, to say the least.

Again, I’d be interested to know whether people feel Stockport’s got the balance right, or whether the Council should be investing more in dealing with the bad weather.

See also my other posts on this issue, plus the comments made on each:

Snow, travel and services on 6th Jan

What gritting was done on the night of 23rd December in Stockport?

Stockport’s been gritting over the weekend before Christmas

How’s Stockport done on gritting (26th Dec)

Ice in Stockport - now we need to tackle the cul-de-sacs

Stockport ice and gritting update, 4th Jan

Here’s the message councillors have received about Stockport’s gritting from Solutions SK (the company wholly owned by Stockport Council which does these sorts of things):

“Over the weekend we have been doing non stop gritting operations, using 440 tonnes of salt.

Due to the road surface temperatures constantly remaining below freezing and frequent heavy snow showers the laying snow and ice will be slow to melt.

From Friday we have been in constant communication with the Met Office throughout the weekend monitoring the situation.

This morning we will be carrying on gritting operations on the tertiary routes along with hand gritting teams from Highways, Cleansing and Grounds with 2 JCB’s working on the High level Roads snow removing.”

See also my other posts on this issue, plus the comments made on each:

Snow, travel and services on 6th Jan

What gritting was done on the night of 23rd December in Stockport?

My experiences of snow and gritting in Stockport

How’s Stockport done on gritting (26th Dec)

Ice in Stockport - now we need to tackle the cul-de-sacs

Stockport ice and gritting update, 4th Jan

What better way to spend the Saturday evening before Christmas than driving around Cheadle and Gatley spotting faulty lights?

OK, I didn’t spend more than an hour before deciding a warm house was definitely preferable, but I picked up a few issues that I’ve passed onto the Council.

1. Christmas lights in Cheadle & Gatley
- The star outside Barclays Bank, Church Road in Gatley is still not working
- On Gatley Road, Cheadle the Christmas light outside Meadows Cycle Shop is not working.
- At the junction of Wilsmlow Rd and the High Street, the Christmas light outside the White Hart is not working
- On High Street, Cheadle the Christmas light outside Thomsons isn’t working
- On High Street, Cheadle the Christmas light outside the Royal Bank of Scotland isn’t working
- At the corner of Stockport Road and Manchester Road in Cheadle, the Christmas light isn’t working.

2. Streetlights in Cheadle
- Lamp 14 on Ashfield Road (south end) at the corner of Whitegates Road not working
- On the Massie Street (East) car park,Cheadle, the lamp nearest to M.J. Scott (in the north west corner of the car park) isn’t working.
- Lamp 29 outside 68 Wilmslow Road, Cheadle isn’t working
- Lamp 22 outside 56 Wilmslow Road, Cheadle isn’t working
- Lamp 5 opposite 3 Broadway, Cheadle isn’t working
- Lamp 6 outside 3 Broadway, Cheadle isn’t working
- Lamp 9 outside 17 Broadway, Cheadle isn’t working
- Lamp 13 outside 31 Broadway, Cheadle, isn’t working

- The lamp outside Costa Coffee, High Street, Cheadle isn’t working (though the Christmas lights on the same post are)
- The lamp outside Cheadle Library, Ashfield Road, in the centre of the parking bays, isn’t working.

3. Illuminated streetsigns in Cheadle and Gatley
- At the junction of Milton Crescent and Gatley Road, Cheadle there are four illuminated speed signs.  Three are not lit.
- At the north end of Old Hall Street, Gatley, by the grass triangle there are four no entry signs, none of which are lit.

Following last week’s public meeting about traffic issues on Schools Hill in Cheadle, I can report some early action.

Council officers will be looking into the water issues at the bottom of Schools Hill: that’s the pooling near the junction with Wilmslow Road and the water that seems to run across from somewhere behind the Pavillions from time to time.

At the other end of Schools Hill, the lines on the road marking the right turn into Turnfield Drive will be repainted to make them clearer.  Additionally, the whole road is now down on the list to have its lines repainted, though I don’t have a timescale for that.

Of course, Pam King and I will continue to work to resolve the other issues raised including the Schools Hill/Wilmslow Road junction, traffic going to the school blocking the road and turning out of Daylesford Road onto Schools Hill.

New proposals to allow councils to put in place 20 mph schemes over groups of streets without the need for traffic calming measures such as speed humps were announced today by Road Safety Minister Paul Clark.

The Government is encouraging local councils to introduce 20 mph schemes into residential streets and other roads where cycle and pedestrian traffic is high, such as around schools, shops and parks.

In the past, councils wanting to implement 20 mph schemes on groups of roads have had to do so in ‘zones’ which require traffic calming measures such as speed humps. 20 mph limits without traffic calming were only recommended on individual roads.

However, following a successful city-wide trial in Portsmouth which suggested it is possible to significantly reduce speeds on residential streets without speed humps or other traffic calming measures, the Department for Transport plans to allow 20mph limits to be used across more streets where traffic speeds are already low without the need for such measures.

Paul Clark said:

“The number of people killed and seriously injured on Britain’s roads has fallen by 40% since the mid-1990s and Britain now has the joint safest roads in the world. But too many pedestrians and cyclists – including many children – are still being killed or hurt on the roads around their homes and schools.

“We have seen that 20 mph zones with traffic calming measures can make a real difference to the safety of local roads. But we’ve also looked at the latest research and listened to councils and residents who want to introduce 20mph limits on a series of roads where physical traffic calming measures aren’t possible or practical.

“Allowing councils to put in place 20 mph speed limits on more streets without speed humps or chicanes will mean that they can introduce them at a lower cost and with less inconvenience to local residents.”

Last week a report published in the British Medical Journal found that 20 mph zones in London had led to a dramatic reduction in the number of accidents in those areas and called for more 20 mph zones and limits to be put in place.

The Government is also reiterating its call for councils to carry out speed limit reviews of their rural roads by 2011, focussing on National Speed Limit single carriageway ‘A’ and ‘B’ roads where 41% of fatalities occur. Local authorities should consider reducing the limit on the most dangerous roads where this will have a significant impact on casualties. These decisions remain entirely for local authorities to make based on their knowledge of local roads.

The Department for Transport is seeking the views of local councils on these proposals in order to allow new guidance to be published at the earliest available opportunity.

I was very pleased indeed to see the grids and gullies being properly cleaned along Styal Road - between Church Road and West Drive in Gatley.

Some background on this.  Pam King and I identified, with help from local residents, that some of the grids and gullies haven’t been cleaned out in years.  They’re checked at least once a year, but for some reason not cleaned.

There are often good reasons for not cleaning out a grid.  For example, if a vehicle is parked over it or it’s jammed.  We couldn’t see why those should apply on Styal Road though.

Rod Camblin at the Council offered to look into it, starting with Styal Road, and as we saw today, he’s come up with the goods.   The grids were cleared out and a couple of issues identified for further attention.

I’m told this shouldn’t be a one-off either.  We should see the machine back every few weeks and I’m hoping the Council can tackle Gatley Road next.

We’ve achieved quite a lot in the last few months tackling this issue:

• Grids on Old Hall Road, Cambridge Road, Belmonth Road, Leyland Avenue, Norwood Road and Dunmore Road were cleared over the summer - getting rid of the large puddle opposite the exit to Gatley Medican Centre.
•  The problem causing large puddles outside Hewitts, by the junction of Church Road and Gatley Road, has been fixed.
• The grid on Longley Lane has been unblocked, getting rid of the large pool of water that covered half the road after heavy rain.
• Structural work around Gatley Green looks to have sorted out the regular flooding outside the Co-op, by the Prince of Wales and near the War Memorial.
• Work to fix the flooding issue on Silverdale Road, near the High Grove pub, is scheduled for the next week or so.

There’s more to do - and these things do take time.  In Cheadle there’s the pool at the bottom of Schools Hill and at the corner of Kingsway and Gatley Road.  In Gatley there’s the water under the railway bridge and at the bottom of Oakwood Avenue.  There are a few others around too.

But there’s a lot to be positive about.  Thanks to Rod and his team at the Council, things are really started to move.

On Monday night I spotted the streetlamp I’d reported a few weeks back - on the path between Belmont Road and South Park Road - still wasn’t working.  Turns out it was marked as fixed by the Council, so now they’ll take another look.

This morning I was out delivering more leaflets, including invitations to our public meeting next Tuesday evening to discuss traffic problems at the junction of Schools Hill and Wilmslow Road in Cheadle.

I delivered to Lynton Road, and parts of Gatley Road, Wilmslow Road, Schools Hill, Park Lodge Close, Valley Road and Valley Close.

On the way I spotted a few issues that I’ve reported to the Council

• Litter at the top of Schools Hill, on the side road that approached South View Gardens.
• Litter around the Wilmslow Road entrance to Brookfield Park.
• Graffiti on the Virgin Media box outside 224 Kingsway.
• Paving stone sticking up outside 232 Kingsway
• Branches across footpath, outside Turnfield House, by Turnfield Road.
• Graffiti on underpass beneath Cheadle Royal roundabout (the one over the A34).

I also delivered a letter to residents of Depleach Road - Pam and I are hoping we can find a good solution to their parking issues.

The public meeting to discuss the traffic issues around Schools Hill and Wilmslow Road will be on Tuesday 8th December 2009, 6pm in the Lecture Theatre, Kingsway Lower School, High Grove Road, Cheadle.

At the meeting I hope we can do two things.

The first is to get a list of what the different issues are, and the priorities residents assign to them.

The second is to have some initial discussion of the possible solutions.

We don’t have firm plans or budgets, so we aren’t in a position to make any commitments at this stage.  My hope is that the information from the meeting will give us as councillors what we need to focus our efforts.

I’ve got several hundred leaflets to deliver, which I’m hoping to get out in the next few days.

Two “in-progress” issues we mentioned in our latest Keeping in Touch leaflet are now being sorted, both on Oak Road.

At the junction with Stockport Road, the dip (which turns into a big puddle in wet weather - and I’ve almost forgotten there’s any other kind) is now fixed.

The area of land between the two sets of Honeycombe Cottages is being tidied up by the owner, after I asked the Council to track him down.

A few things reported to the Council in the last day:

• Faulty streetlight outside 7 Turnfield Road, Cheadle
• Uneven pavement on Hawthorn Road outside the United Reform church
• Smashed bottle on pavement outside the Hollies, Oakwood Avenue, needs cleaning up.
• Litter in the alleyway behind 2-12 Pendlebury Road needs clearing.

A really interesting (for me, anyway) article on the law around 20mph limits and traffic calming.  I didn’t know that the law said you had to have traffic calming measures if you had a 20mph limit. (Although I’m sure some places have 20mph without traffic calming - Crossacres Road in Wythenshawe for a start).

The law seems to be that you can have a 20 mph limit without traffic calming measures, but only if the traffic is already quite slow - at least 85% of vehicles should already be going 24mph or slower.

However, the Government research is clear that 20 mph limits do work in reducing speeds and accidents (though not in getting everyone to drive slower that 20 mph).

average speeds reduced by 9 mph, annual accident frequency fell by 60%, the overall reduction in child accidents was 67%, and there was an overall reduction in accidents to cyclists of 29%. Traffic flow in the zones was reduced by 27%, but flows on the surrounding boundary roads increased by 12%. There was generally little accident migration to surrounding roads.

The Government advice on introducing 20mph zones is here.  I’ll be interested to read up on the details: certainly I agree with the author of article that any community should have all the information as early as possible.

I was really pleased to see that, the morning after all that torrential rain, there was almost no standing water in front of the Gatley Green Co-op.

The recent work has obviously done the trick - for now at least.  As I noted a few days ago, there’s no shortage of other blocked grids to be tackling, but it’s good to see progress being made.

Some small improvements coming to Oak Road in Cheadle:

• A few days ago I reported the dip at the corner of Oak Road and Stockport Road, and it’s now marked up for repair.
• For a while, residents on Oak Road by Oak Court have been asking for a higher fence to improve the privacy and security in their back gardens.  Stockport Homes have confirmed that this is now going ahead, and residents will be consulted on the type of fence they want shortly.  This affects people living on the west side of Oak Road, immediately south of Oak Court.
• I’ve asked Council officers to look into who owns the messy bit of land by the electricity substation between the two sets of Honeycombe Cottages.  I’d like to see the owner looking after it properly.

I’ve reported a faulty streetlight on the alleyway between Belmont Road and South Park Road in Gatley.  The streetlight is the one immediately on the Belmont Road (west) side of the railway line, labelled as “2″ on the post.

Good news: the Council’s investigations into the flooding problems on Gatley Green will start later this week.

We know that just cleaning the grids won’t work  - it’s been tried more than once.  The problem is that there are quite a few other things that could be causing a problem.  Until the drains people take a good look at what’s happening underground, they won’t know how to fix it.

Once that’s been done, we’ll be looking to get the problem sorted as soon as we can - though exactly how long  will depend on what’s found.

When it comes to spotting surface water problems, you can’t beat getting out after heavy rain. Sometimes the place you thought was a major problem turns out not to be so serious and one you hadn’t spotted becomes obvious.

Few people would suggest we could or should get rid of all puddles, but where pools of water are causing serious problems for pedestrians, drivers and cyclists they should be prioritised.

So what did I find?

Gatley Green
Several issues around Gatley Green (which may be connected if there’s a serious problem under the road).

Outside Bethany Community Church:

Outside the Prince of Wales pub:

The entrance to the road in front of Gatley Green Co-op and A&I:

The exit from the Gatley Green Co-op road:

Longley Lane

The junction of Oakwood Avenue and Gatley Road, by the railway bridge

Entrance to Gatley Medical Centre, Old Hall Road

Gatley railway bridge

Stockport Road, opposite Frances Street

Entrance to Clifton Drive

Styal Road crossing, from Baxter Park

Outside 8 Styal Road

The good news

Frustrating as it is to have all these issues - and Pam and I are working hard to resolve them, though it will take time - it wouldn’t be fair to ignore the good news.

I’m sure I missed some problems (in the time I had this morning I mostly stuck to the main roads), but at the time that I checked (between 9am and 10am) I didn’t see significant pools of water on West Drive, along Gatley Road (except by the railway bridge) or on Schools Hill (though I’ve seen problems both at the bottom of the hill and at the exit to the school recently).

There was no pool of water at the junction of Gatley Road and Kingsway - something that has been a problem recenrtly.

The pools of water outside Hewitts in Gatley village centre are gone following Council action

And the large pool that aleays formed on Old Hall Road, Gatley has been sorted as well.

And there are thousands of grids which are clear and working fine.

Sorting out a public meeting for residents to discuss the options for improving the Schools Hill/Wilmslow Road junction in Cheadle has proven to be a little trickier than I’d thought - but all part of being a new councillor, I guess.

On Tuesday at the Cheadle Area Committee, I asked for the public meeting and it was approved.  I’ve now got to chase it up and get the thing organised.

I’ve pretty much got all the information to bring along to it, so should be soon.

Dodging the rain around lunchtime, I managed to get about half of the South Park Road Estate delivered with our latest newspaper.

I chatted to a few people on the way round and thought an update on a few issues was in order.

• there’s been a residents’ consultation on parking restrictions in Coniston, Brentwood and Brogden.  I don’t know the results yet - should find out soon.  Some residents are concerned that the options offered didn’t go far enough to deal with the problems - something I’m looking into.
• Mark Hunter and I have both been in touch with the police about improving enforcement of the “no entry except for access” rule.  I think it’s fair to say that the police remain cautious about committing manpower to this and there’s still work to be done.
• I’ve been contacted about the “Ahead Only” sign on the road surface of South Park Road, just past Mardale Drive.  The concern is that it’s not very useful having it there.  I’m not sure, to be honest, but as it’s now down, I don’t think we could justify spending money painting it out.
• I’ve reported a dodgy bit of pavement by the kerbstone outside 172 Kingsway.
• I was very glad to see the trees at the entrance to Brogden Drive have now been full removed - an issue Pam and I raised with the Council at the end of July.

Back in August, before I was elected, I reported a bunch of potholes on Newboult Road in Cheadle (among many others).

Many of them have now been repaired, but one stretch has slipped through.

I’ve now reported the following:

1. Pothole in centre of road by 1/3 Newboult Road, Cheadle

2. Pothole in centre of road by 5 Newboult Road, Cheadle

3. Line of 8-10 potholes down centre of Newboult Road, Cheadle from number 20 to number 26.

It’s raining again and so we’ve once again got the flooding by the road in front of the Gatley Green Co-op.

This is an issue we’ve been working on for a while and the good news is that work to fix it has been scheduled.  There’s also work in the plan to fix the flooding at the corner of Kingsway and Gatley Road, and others Pam and I are working on.

Some have been fixed already.  I’ve been closely checking two areas that used to flood all the time: Old Hall Road opposite the exit to Gatley Medical Centre and Gatley Road outside Hewitts.  Both seem to be greatly improved.

The problem is that it’s a lot more than a quick hosing or rodding to fix some of these. It can be a serious problem underground.

Sometimes a builder’s poured waste concrete down a drain and, surprisingly enough, it sets and blocks everything. Or a utility company will lay a pipe through the drain and not tell anyone: the water drains into the earth at first, then backs up and floods.

These sorts of problems need to be fully investigated and work commissioned to fix them, typically costing thousands of pounds.

In addition to these flooding problems, I’m also working to get other locations fixed, including Styal Road and along Gatley Road from Gatley into Cheadle; but it will take time.

A few issues Pam King and I have reported:

• two of the lighted bollards on Broadway, near the junction with Wilmslow Road, need repairing.
• there’s graffiti on the green telecoms box on Mornington Road, near Broadway, which I’ve asked to be cleared off.
• I’ve reported a couple of potholes in the tarmac section right at the bottom of Cherington Road.
• Pam’s reported graffiti on the NTL box on Daylesford Crescent at the junction with Daylesford road and the North West Water Board gate next to 49 Daylesford Road.

It was good to see work being done tidying the plants and trees on Gatley’s old cemetary, next to the medical centre on Old Hall Road.

I was glad the foliage growing across the pavement at the corner was cleared back, as I asked a little while ago.

The signpost in the cemetary, which is leaning badly,   still needs to be repaired and made safe - I’ll be chasing that up.

Meanwhile, having reported foliage growing onto the pavement space from the railway land over the road from the station, I was pleased a couple of days ago to get a call from Network Rail.  The guy I spoke to was on site and I was able to explain exactly where the problem was.

I’m running a series of posts to summarise over 400 pages of documents in way that helps those who live and work in Stockport Borough understand the issues we’re facing, the options we have and the Council proposals in how the Borough develops over the next 17 years.

This is the third post.  You can read my overview plus my piece on  the Accessibility Appraisal paper.  This one covers the Core Strategy DPD Preferred Options Consultation, which you can read in full, and comment on, here.

This time I’m trying to condense 140 pages into a few hundred words - wish me luck.

What issues is the strategy trying to tackle?

Although both the population of Stockport Borough and the amount of traffic has fallen slightly in the last few years, we don’t expect that to continue.   The Government is asking Stockport to provide 450 new dwellings (houses or flats) every year - that’s over 7,000 by 2026.

At the same time Stockport, like everywhere, has issues to tackle with how things are now.   We’re the third most polarised borough in the country with pockets of deprivation and much more affluent areas.  Our main roads are congested. Stockport Town Centre isn’t all it could be.  Lots of people live in the Borough and travel out for work, with lots more living outside and travelling in.  And, in common with most other areas, we have an aging population and a lack of affordable housing.

The general approach

So we expect to have thousands of new flats and houses, which means (over time), more shops, offices, schools, sport, leisure, culture and health facilities and cemetaries.  Where should they all go?

This was the subject of a previous consultation.  Different options were looked at and the conclusion was, in the main, to strengthen existing centres.  By far the most development is planned for Stockport Town Centre.  Another big chunk goes into the District Centres and the Large Local Centres, with a smaller amount elsewhere.

Stockport has 8 District Centres: Cheadle, Cheadle Hulme, Bramhall, Edgeley, Hazel Grove, Marple, Reddish and Romiley.  It has 10 Large Local Centres: Gatley, Heald Green, Moor Top, Heaton Moor, Shaw Road/Heaton Moor Road, Heaton Chapel, Davenport, Great Moor, North Reddish and Marple Bridge.

Housing

There’s more to this than just building lots of houses and flats.  How big should they be?  How expensive?  Where should they go?

The proposal in this strategy paper is

• a 50/50 split between houses and flats overall, with most flats going in the Town Centre (which will end up with a much higher population) and most houses going around the District and Large Local Centres.
• The majority of the flats to have two bedrooms.
• 40% of new housing to be affordable for those on lower incomes.
• 80% of new housing to be in existing buildings and previously developed land.
• More social rented housing for Bramhall, Cheadle Hulme, Cheadle, Edgeley, Davenport, Marple, Romiley and the Heatons.
• If Woodford Aerodrome becomes vacant, using it wholly or partially for housing is one of several options.
• Stockport currently has no formal Gypsy and Traveller pitches.  Following Government guidance, we are expected to create 35, plus another ten travelling showpeople pitches.  This should increase to 57 pitches in total by 2026 and they should be be in urban areas with good access to services.
• 50% of the new dwellings to be in the Central Housing Area, with up to 2,000 in the Town Centre (the Central Housing Area is the Town Centre plus some areas around it).
• A further 35% of new dwellings to be within walking distance of District and Large Local centres.
• 15% of dwellings to be built elsewhere.

Reducing the size of some struggling centres

Even in the recession, most of our District and Local Centres are doing OK, including Cheadle, Gatley, Bramhall and Heald Green.  Walk around them and you won’t see many empty units.

Some are suffering more, including Hazel Grove and Edgeley.  For these, one option is to reduce the size of the centres - for example, by turning retail units at the edges of the centres into residential properties.

For all centres, the paper also offers the option of limiting the number of hot food and fast food outlets either within a centre altogether or near to schools and play areas.

Cemetaries

It may not be something most of us give much thought to, but Stockport’s cemetaries will be full in 10-15 years.  Should we create new cemetaries (if so, where?) or re-use existing ones.

Strengthen District and Local Centres

The overall strategy is to maintain and enhance the Town Centre along with existing District and Local Centres.

Here, I confess, I don’t think the document is very clear (and, in one case, makes a fairly blatant mistake).  The section in question is 7.135 on page 70.  It refers to changes in planning policies.

The paper proposes  controlling the scale, clustering and mix of uses in Centres to meet local needs and enhance the viability of the Centres.  Great in principle, and fine if there are lots of retailers and developers with different schemes.  The problem comes when the commercial environment isn’t quite so strong.

You might want to have a retail outlet in a particular place, but if no retailers want to open there, your real choice might be something else (a take-away, for example) or nothing. It could well be that nothing - an empty unit - is the best choice in some cases, but we should be aware of the issue.

With that in mind, I’m not clear exactly what the paper’s proposing.

Outside Local and District Centres, the paper proposes that we permit a change of use from service to non-service (e.g. offices or residential) unless there’s a good reason not to, as part of the strategy to strengthen the Centres.

In Large Local Centres, the paper says we should restrict the size of new shops and leisure units (where not re-using an existing building) to a maximum of  500 square metres (and 250 square metres in other Local Centres).  For District Centres, the much higher limit of 25,000 square metres is proposed.  (I think incorrect wording results in this paragraph actually saying the opposite of this).

There’s also a sentence which, I think, suggests that a new small convenience store would not be permitted if other local retailers already provide the same services.

Requiring that new convenience shops meeting local needs (up to max 250 square metres) will only be allowed where there are no alternative sustainably accessible facilities.

Again, it not necessarily a problem; but I don’t understand why we’d want to single out convenience shops.  If we’re going to protect that one type of shop from competition, why not protect newsagents, cafes or hairdressers?

Building business

The plan identifies the need to build strong business centres around Stockport, and argues that this should be primarily achieved by enhancing and promoting the Town Centre for new office development.  That fits in with the principle of enhancing the Town Centre overall, and concentrates more traffic flows into the centre (which is the location best served by public transport and car parking).

In particular, the strategy is to attract ICT, digital, creative and new media companies into offices around the A6 south of the M60 - especially in the civic quarter.

There’s also strong office provision in some our District and Local Centres: Bramhall, Cheadle, Cheadle Hulme, Hazel Grove, Stepping Hill and Gatley.  These should be supported.

Heavier industry should have direct access to main access routes (e.g. motorways) without having to go through residential areas.  The Bredbury Industrial Area is given as an example of a location that fits the bill.

The report says that there’s no specific need to find new areas of employment close to deprived areas: either they are there already, or there are good public transport links from those areas to the Town Centre.

Sport, green spaces and leisure

Stockport has an oversupply of senior sports pitches (compared to the Government recommendation for how many we should have) but slightly too few mini soccer facilities.

The report also identifies a shortfall of leisure facilities in the Town Centre, Hazel Grove, Reddish, Romiley and Edgeley, with too few sports halls (relative to the population) in the north and north east of the Borough.

There’s a discussion about our green spaces, both “formal open space” - parks and similar - and other green spaces.

Should we continue the current strategy of retaining a semi-rural character for our river valleys; or should we use that space to meet more formal needs, for example by building sports pitches there?

Overall, though the Cheadle area (Cheadle, Gatley, Heald Green and the northern part of Cheadle Hulme) was identified as having more than enough formal open space (again, compared to Government recommendations), the Borough as a whole falls 105 hectares short.  The Heatons also do well for green space, with Victoria, Tame Valley and Werneth needing improvement.

The plan rejects giving absolute protection to current green space.  It gives the example of the Cheadle Committee area, where there’s lots of formal green space and a shortage of affordable housing.  It suggests the option to swap some should be left open.

Transport

The strategy paper advocates more people living, working and playing in Stockport Town Centre along with our District and Local Centres.  If that’s going to be successful, we need to be able to get to and from those places.

Issues identified include:

• a lack of orbital train links from Stockport to Manchester Airport and Tameside
• a lack of train links between Stockport and some District Centres (Marple, Cheadle) and a general weakness in public transport between Marple and Stockport
• congestion across many of the Borough’s main roads

It notes that there are plans currently in place to improve transport provision, including SEMMMS, aiming to deliver the extended A555 Relief Road by 2016 and rail improvements scheduled to start from 2014.

Other reports and plans are noted including the 2009-2015 Stockport Cycling Strategy,  the Greater Manchester Integration Transport Strategy (GMITS) and the South Pennines Integrated Transport Strategy (SPITS).

Beyond those (which I won’t cover here, but will do at some stage if I have the time), the paper comes up with a selection of ideas that fall some way short of firm proposals:

• we need to shift from single-occupancy car use to more car sharing, cycling,  walking and public transport.
• promote flexible working and home working
• introduce more 20mph zones in residential areas
• improve the network of walking and cycling routes, both direct (normally on-road) and off-road for recreational and less confident cyclists.

Disclaimer

In this post I’ve attempted to summarise Stockport Council’s Core Strategy Development Plan Document (DPD) consultation paper.  This is my own work; it is not an official Council or Liberal Democrat summary and I’d be frankly amazed if there weren’t significant omissions and mistakes.   Nothing in this summary should be taken as indicating either my or the Liberal Democrats’ support for, or agreement with, the strategy paper.

The Accessibility Appraisal Consultation Paper is part of Stockport Council’s Core Strategy - how the borough needs to develop over the next 15-20 years.  The document is being consulted on and you have until 25th November to give your opinions.

This is my summary of that paper.  Since the full document is 82 pages, you can take it as read that things are missed out.  Also, this is purely from me reading the document - which you can do too.  I’ve no extra information and I may have made mistakes.  With that in mind, let’s press on.

What’s the purpose of the Accessibility Appraisal? 

We should start off by being clear about what the document is and isn’t trying to achieve.  It doesn’t lay out proposals for what should be done in Stockport.  You won’t find plans to improve a certain bus service, build new housing in a certain area or create a new retail park.

Rather, it attempts to set the scene, to provide the basis for making those proposals, to define the problems that we need to solve and the challenges we need to meet.  Not quite as exciting, but very important.  If you’re not asking the right questions, your chance of coming up with the right answers is pretty low.

What is accessibility?

For this study, “accessibility” is simply how easy it is for people to get to everywhere they need to: their jobs, shops, schools, medical centres, hospitals, pubs, restaurants, leisure facilities, parks and community facilities.

You may reach them by car; but not everyone has a car and, even for those who do, it’s not much good saying the shop’s just down the road if you have to sit in a traffic jam for an hour to get there.  You might also get to them by train, bus, bike or on foot.

The Government is asking for over 7,500 new dwellings to be built in Stockport over the next 17 years, meaning more people and more traffic.

A big part of our challenge is to figure out how to organise that so we get the extra flats and houses in the right places and keep (and improve) this accessibility, for both new and existing residents.

Dealing with inequality

Stockport has relatively high inequality, both between areas in the borough (e.g. compare Brinnington and Bramhall) and within areas (e.g. older people).  It’s very important we provide access for all, not just the wealthier in our community.  We also need to recognise that more deprived areas have different problems, such as poorer health and higher unemployment.

Two examples

Let’s suppose we look at a relatively poor area, and we think it might be a good place to build additional low cost housing too.  So we can predict we’ll have a population who not only need all the usual services and facilities like shops and parks, but will have a higher need for healthcare and certain sorts of jobs.  Additionally, they are less likely to have cars.

For an area like this, it will be very important to ensure safe and reasonably fast access to healthcare, shops, workplaces, entertainment and the rest of it by public transport, walking and cycling.

Alternatively, we can look at a wealthier area with high car ownership.  In this case, it might be more important to look at congestion, to predict where new pinch points in the  road network will emerge and tackle those (for example, through the SEMMMS strategy).

 So what are the problems?

The paper is the result of a big study that looked across the borough, worked out how good access was to all the different services in each place and mapped it.  That was also compared to areas of low car ownership and poor health.

Overall, the picture is clear.  Those of us in the centre, north and north west of the borough have - by and large - the best access to all the different services.  That’s areas like the Town Centre, Cheadle, Gatley, the Heatons, Reddish, Cheadle Hulme and out to Hazel Grove.

Those in the south and east of the borough have the poorest access to services: Bramhall (outside the village centre), Woodford, Romiley, Marple, Bredbury and Offerton, for example.

That’s not necessarily a problem right now: plenty of people choose to live somewhere more rural and happily trade-off being a bit further from the shops against living in their preferred location.

It is a problem, however, where you have a population with poor health and low car ownership who also have poor access to services; or where the roads are getting so congested that drivers can’t get to where they want to go.

So, for example, the study identifies a lack of links from Marple to Stockport Town Centre and congestion around Bramhall Moor as serious issues.  It also expresses concern about the lack of access to services in places like Bredbury Green, Cherry Tree Lane (Romiley) and Marple South (especially Hawk Green).

And to absolutely no-one’s surprise, the study idenfies congestion issues on most of the main roads around the borough.

What’s to be done?

As I said before, this report is about identifying the questions, with the answers still to come, and that’s an important thing to get right.  However, we do get a sniff of what some of the answers might look like.

The study suggests better promoting the Town Centre as  an evening destination.  That means not only having the restaurants, pubs, clubs, cinemas, theatres and the like, but also public transport links that run late into the night.

It also talks about promoting mixed developments (where you have housing, workplaces and other services all in the same area) and more “employment sites” around the borough.  The aim is to reduce the distances people need to travel, which would reduce congestion, not to mention making our lives more pleasant.

For example, the report idenfies Cheadle Royal and Woodford as two such centres, but warns that public transport access to both are currently poor and would need to be improved.

What’s there to consult on?

So far I’ve tried to summarise the content of the report.  This is a consultation and the paper says

Comments are invited on the proposed approach. By way of guidance comments would be welcome in relation to the following questions:
1. Do you agree with the principles behind the approach?
2. Do you think the process is sufficiently transparent to use as a basis for accessibility policies?
3. Do you agree with the emphasis of the approach on public choice rather than just achieving a minimum accessibility standard?
4. Would you like to see this approach applied in support other areas of policy development (such as in education or health service provision)?

What might you say?  You might think the report is about right - if so, it’s worth saying it.  If nothing else, it’ll give the people who wrote it a bit more job satisfaction!

Do you agree that accessibility is the right thing to focus on?  As we look forwards over the next two decades, should we be spending time, money and energy on minimising the travel time for people to get to where they want to go; or is that the wrong goal?

You might feel that it hasn’t got the measures right when looking at accessibility.  As the report admits, it doesn’t identify pinch points in the transport network, nor does it take into account off-road transport routes such as footpaths and cycle paths.

Perhaps you disagree with the idea of trying to bring our jobs closer to our homes and feel that a better solution would be to build a transport network to shuttle people as quickly as possible to Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds and elsewhere to give Stockport residents the widest catchment area for jobs.

Question 3 links into ideas of what the Local Authority - and its partners - are there for.  Is it the job of the public sector to make our transport network as good as it can be, or should we be doing much less (and so needing less money to do it, perhaps resulting in lower Council Tax).

Until 25th November, you can visit the Council’s consultation portal, read the documents, register online and submit comments.  You can also submit your comments by email to planning.policy@stockport.gov.uk.

Disclaimer

In this post I’ve attempted to summarise Stockport Council’s Accessibility Appraisal Consultation Paper. This is my own work; it is not an official Council or Liberal Democrat summary and I’d be frankly amazed if there weren’t significant omissions and mistakes. Nothing in this summary should be taken as indicating either my or the Liberal Democrats’ support for, or agreement with, the strategy paper.

During a busy morning around Cheadle and Gatley today, I checked out more blocked grids on Gatley Road (now reported), popped into the Gatley Green Co-op and the Foxland Road Spar to check on a couple of issues, went down to Yew Tree Close  to take a look for a forthcoming planning application (DC/042877) and spotted some graffiti on the path from Gatley Golf Club to Troutbeck Road (also now reported).

Here are the details of the grids reported today:

1. Two grids on the south side of Gatley Road, immediately to each side of the railway bridge by Gatley Station.  Both blocked, causing regular large puddles at the junction of Oakwood Avenue and Gatley Road.

2. Ten grids on the north side of Gatley Road between the railway bridge and the Synagogue in Gatley.

3. Grids on the north side of Gatley Road in Cheadle, between Kingsway and Wensley pretty much every grid is blocked.

4. Outside 73 Gatley Road there’s a grid in the centre of the pavement in a dip.  It looks clear, but local residents tell me it’s blocked further down and, because it’s in a dip, causes deep puddles around the entrances to the properties after heavy rain.

5. Outside 79 Gatley Road, grid blocked with grass growing out of it.

Most of the things I get involved with are pretty immediate.  Problems that need fixing as soon as possible, or at most issues like the Kingsway filter that might take a couple of years to sort out.

So thinking about how I see Stockport developing up to 2026 requires a bit of a shift in focus.

That’s the idea behind Stockport Council’s Core Strategy.  Some progress has been made on this and the latest stage is now open for consultation until 25th November.

The issues aren’t simple.

Like everywhere else in the country, Stockport needs to provide new housing (at least 450 dwellings a year - nearly 8,000 by 2026.  That’s a whole Cheadle & Gatley and a bit more besides (we have about 6,500 dwellings in the ward).

What should the mix of housing be?  Where should it be located?  How many flats?  How much social housing?

How do we build the economic future of the borough, providing jobs, education and training for current and future residents?

What needs to be done to attract more people into the Town Centre along with our local and district centres (Cheadle is a district centre, Gatley is a local centre).  How do we ensure not only vibrant retail centres but also the best access for all to leisure, culture, education, health, open space and other community facilities.

How do we protect our open spaces, greenbelt land and heritage?

Stockport is already congested, so how can we get everyone moving even with thousands of extra homes?  What mix of buses, trains, facilities for cyclists and pedestrians and, of course, private car travel is right?

For the next month, you can visit the Council’s consultation portal, read the documents, register online and submit comments.  You can also submit your comments by email to planning.policy@stockport.gov.uk.

The actual consultation documents are fairly involved - together there’s several hundred pages.

So, to get more people involved, I’m currently reading and summarising the different documents - hopefully in a way that draws out the key questions and issues.

First there’s the Accessibility Appraisal.  That document sets the scene - it’s more about defining the issues than coming up with solutions.  It looks at how easy or difficult it is for people to get to where they want to go - to access schools, shops, jobs, leisure and healthcare, for example.

Next is the Core Strategy Consulation, which looks forward over the next 17 years with proposals covering housing, jobs, green spaces, sport and leisure, transport and more.

The other three papers, which I haven’t summarised yet are:

• Core Strategy DPD: Preferred Options - Habitats Regulations Assessment Screening Report
• Core Strategy DPD: Preferred Options - Sustainability Appraisal Screening Report
• Core Strategy DPD: Preferred Options - Sustainability Appraisal Screening Report Annexes

Oh, the high powered life of a local councillor.  Yesterday afternoon I had a two hour introductory session on local government finance, then last evening I walked around Gatley, visiting a couple of people,  and spotted some streetlamps that aren’t working.  If only I’d taken photos, I might have featured on the wonderful glum councillors website.

Anyway, here’s the list.  If it’s just a faulty bulb they should be fixed within a few days - it may take longer if the fault is something more serious.

1. Lamp outside 14/16 Coniston Road, Gatley

2. Lamp outside 200 Kingsway, Gatley (marked “59″)

3. Lamp outside 8/10 Torkington Road, Gatley

4. Lamp outside 12 Springfield Road, Gatley

One of the joys of Autumn is the leaves falling from the trees.  Who didn’t enjoy, as a child, walking through the piles of golden leaves?

Unfortunately, the piles of leaves are fine for a few days and then have a habit of turning to slippery mush, so the Council puts a lot of effort into clearing them away - quite a task.

Yesterday morning, a team was in action on Old Hall Road, Gatley.  Leaves were swept up, put into sacks and taken away.  I counted at least ten sacks full of fallen leaves and saw the nice clean pavements.

Good to see the work being done.

Here are a few things this week that I’ve achieved:

• The Council’s Pothole Moles have been out and about, so more of the tens of potholes I’ve been reporting are now repaired.
• The streetlight overlooking the car park on Gatley Hill is now working again.
• Work is in progress to remove the tree stumps on Brogden Drive, Gatley - an issue Pam and I raised at the end of July.
• Also on the South Park Road Estate, the promised traffic count has taken place.
• Street lamp repaired on Gatley Road, by the bus stop near Delamere Road.
• The signpost on Brookside Rec, on the path from Brookside Road, was loose and dangerous - now it’s fixed.

Meanwhile, I reported five broken streetlights on Shiers Drive, Cheadle yesterday evening.

Along with the other ward councillors, I’ve a meeting with the developers of the Tatton site this afternoon, where I’ll be hoping to find out more about what they’ve got in mind - I’ll report back on that as far as I’m able.

Having done some thinking about a cycle route to get from the Kingsway/Gatley Road junction to Parrs Wood, I got on my bike yesterday and gave it a go.

This is a first pass at coming up with something reasonably easy and safe that isn’t too expensive.

I’ve knocked up a Google map of the route here.

View Kingsway cycle path in a larger map

Coming from Gatley/Cheadle you cycle down Coniston Road, then turn right onto South Park Road. So far, so good.

At the bottom of South Park Road, you need to cross onto the pavement that goes under Kingsway and then around the inside of the road up to join Kingsway. Two issues there. You need to cross safely onto the pavement. Then, as you cycle up to Kingsway, the pavement becomes too narrow, so it would need to be slightly widened.

Next you cycle along the pavement up Kingsway into Manchester. Issues here:

• foliage often grows over the pavement on Kingswat near the South Park Road turn-off, would need to be cut back more often.
• Big kerb at the entrance to the Barnes Hospital site - need a drop kerb.
• There’s a pedestrian subway.  It can be cycled through - with care - but the entrance and exit ramps are steep, the subway isn’t wide and visibility isn’t great.
• Once you get over the border into Manchester, what then?  There’s no obvious crossing point to get to the correct side of Kingsway and cycling along the pavement by all the houses isn’t a good idea.

So - all you cyclists out there - what do you think?  It is a viable cycle route, or are there too many problems?

As part of my work on getting grids, gullies and flooding sorted, I’ve been working with Pam King and Council officers to identify the ones in need of sorting out.

Although every grid is checked at least once a year, they may not be cleaned.  If, for example, a vehicle is parked over it when the cleaning machine comes past, it can’t be done and separate arrangements need to be made.

What I’m aiming to do is identify priorities to be revisited.  These ones are all on the west side of Gatley and affect main roads.  I’m compiling a similar list for east Gatley and Cheadle (e.g. along Gatley Road) which I’ll be posting soon.
1. Grid outside 28 Northenden Road, Gatley.

2. Six grids on Church Road alongside Gatley Green, Gatley - the first outside the Prince of Wales pub, three more along the side of the Green, two outside the Red Lion pub.

3. Two grids on Church Road near Gatley Hill and the junction with Styal Road: opposite numbers 110 and 112 Church Road.  The first is jammed with mud and leaves, the second with conkers and leaves.

4. Six grids along the east side of Styal Road between Church Road and West Drive.  All are jammed solid with mud (right to the top, except for the last which has a 12″ gap at the top before the blockage):
-by the pedestrian crossing at the corner of Styal and Church
-opposite 22 Styal Road
-opposite 28 Styal Road
-opposite 34 Styal Road
-outside 39 Styal Road
-opposite 46 Styal Road

5. On the north side of West Drive, near the junction with Styal Road, the first two grids are blocked and cause flooding at the bottom of West Drive onto Styal Road.

An issue Pam and I have been working on for a while looks near to being sorted - the tree stumps near the entrance to Brogden Drive on the South Park Road Estate are scheduled for removal in a couple of weeks.

I’m chasing the Council to get two streetlights on Gatley Hill repaired - the one outside Park Mount and the one by the car park.

Some other lights at the top, along the path past the Scout Hut, don’t belong to the Council.  There’s one owned by the Scouts (the base is physically in the Scout Hut grounds), then two owned by the Brethren chapel - both on the grass behind Gatley Hill House.

The Brethren lightd work fine and they turn them on when they need them, which seems fair enough.  The Scout’s light is not working but should be repaired soon.

A retaining wall is one that runs alongside a road, either stopping land above the road from falling onto the highway or supporting the highway to stop it collapsing down onto lower ground.

The Department of Transport has put £45 million into repairing and maintaining retaining walls in Stockport, Tameside, Oldham and Rochdale to make them safe for years to come - over 100 walls will be repaired over the next three years.

The first retaining wall to be tackled in Stockport is Brinksway in Cheadle Heath - the main road from Cheadle into Stockport.  Work on three walls along Brinksway will run from October 2009 to March 2010. During this time, one lane will be closed during off-peak hours (9.30am to 3.30pm), with temporary traffic lights in place.

Stockport Council maintains a list of current roadworks, along with the details of each here.

Ever seen official-looking spray paint on the pavement or road and wondered what it’s doing there?  I have, and it turns out it’s often not what I thought.

So here’s your handy guide - true for Cheadle & Gatley at least.

• Orange paint is from the Council, normally marking up something to be repaired like a paving stone or pothole.
• Blue paint is the water people
• Yellow paint is the gas people
• Pink paint is telecoms - normally Virgin Media (NTL in the olden days)

Pam and I have been working with Council officers to get some of the blocked grids and gullies sorted out.

We’ve confirmed that work is now scheduled to fix the flooding problems outside the Gatley Green Co-op and at the corner of Kingsway and Gatley Road (on the Cheadle side).

In the next few days I’ll be compiling a list of the blocked grids I’ve come across and going through them one-by-one to get the problem sorted.

And something that interested me: apparently quite a number of blocked drains happen when one of the utility companies puts a pipe right through a drain and leaves it there without telling anyone.  Water soaks into the ground at first, then builds up and floods with the Council left to sort out the mess and us taxpayers picking up the bill.

The number of faulty streetlights around Stockport is a lot lower than it was two or three years ago.  (To be honest, I hadn’t really notice, but then like most people I only really notice the broken lights, the working ones are just there).

That’s down to two actions the Council has taken.

First, there’s been an area-by-area replacement of all the bulbs and checking of the streetlights.  The idea is to replace the bulbs as they get old but before they fail.  Cheadle and Gatley was done last year, so should be up again in a couple of years time.

Second, the crews now go out in the evening looking for broken lamps and, if they can, fixing them on the spot.

The result: more of our street lights are working without it costing taxpayers more money.

Earlier in the year, Brian Millard secured an automated traffic count for the South Park Road Estate - to be positioned near the underpass.  Given that there are only 185 houses on the estate, proving just how much traffic comes on would give us good evidence to get the police to act on enforcement.

Unfortunately, there was a delay (I don’t know why, and Brian’s sad death meant it wasn’t followed up as quickly as it would normally have been).

Now, I’m told, the count will soon be with us, so watch this space.

Not having that count hasn’t stopped us speaking to the police about improving enforcement on the estate.  We haven’t got agreement yet, but we’re working on it and will continue to do so.

Walk around Cheadle village and you’ll see quite a few roads where there was obviously a double yellow line in the past and one of the lines has been painted out, leaving a single yellow.

Quite a few people have asked why it happened - and I didn’t know the answer.

Well, now I think I do.

A while ago the law changed with regard to double yellow lines.  It used to be that you could have a double yellow line that only applied at certain times of day, and you needed a sign to say so.

Now, double yellow lines are valid with no signage, but are all or nothing - you can’t have double-yellows with time restrictions.

That was exactly the situation in Cheadle village.  The double yellow lines only applied at certain times.  When the law changed, that stopped being valid.

The Council decided to retain the same parking restrictions, and that required moving to single yellow lines with appropriate signs.

An alternative would be to get double yellow lines  with no time restrictions (i.e. applied 24 hours a day, 7 days a week).  That can be done, but there’s a legal process to go through that’s both expensive and time-consuming because of the large area involved.

The Highways Agency and Manchester Urban Traffic Control are completing their latest round of modelling and investigations into the Kingsway junction.

As you may know, the Highways Agency have for some time been looking at reworking the junction, but their primary concern is the north-south traffic on Kingsway, and backing onto the M60, rather than the east-west queues from Cheadle and Gatley.

The Lib Dems have been pressing for a right filter from Cheadle and Gatley sides of the junction for several years, but the Highways Agency have always dragged their feet.  Currently, the line is that the filter may be possible only after new (welcome) work on the motorway slip road junction has been completed.

The Highways Agency proposals have not yet been finalised but look likely to include

• new traffic lights where the motorway slip road meets the A34, to control traffic merging onto Kingsway better.
• enable traffic on the motorway slip road to queue in two lanes, instead of being squeezed down to one lane before joining the A34.
• enable pedestrians to safely cross the motorway slip roads

All well and good, except there are some gaps.

No right turn for Gatley

The single biggest issue we’ve been addressing is that all this work on remodelling the junction still doesn’t give us a right filter from the Gatley side, only from Cheadle.

Good for everyone  coming from Cheadle and wanting to get into Manchester or onto the M60, not so good for people coming from Gatley and trying to get onto the A34 southbound.

So why isn’t a Gatley right-filter in the Highways Agency proposals?  It comes down to safety.  They’re concerned that other junctions with this dual right  filter have poor safety records - lots more accidents.

But does that hold water?  Perhaps there’s something special about those dangerous junctions?  Perhaps there’s something that could be done to our junction to allow safe right filters.

Can we have a right filter without the remodelling work?

The work on the motorway slip road is all very well, but not only does it not give us any sort of right filter (even just from Cheadle) for at least another year, it may not happen at all.

The most recent information I have from the Highways Agency suggests that funding for the work is not secured and, with all parties looking to cut public spending, we shouldn’t assume it will be.

So is there any chance of making progress without the slip-road work being done?

The Highways Agency seems unlikely to shorten the north-south green light sequence significantly, but it might be possible to shorten the east-west straight-ahead sequence, or take a bit off both.

There are issues with this (nothing’s perfect).  If we give traffic going straight ahead from Cheadle less time, that means a longer queue.  If the queue gets so long that vehicles can’t get into the right-turn lane, it’s not much use having the right filter.

But those are possibilities, not certainties, and it seems to me worth putting in the extra effort to see if we can get around them.

 Conclusion

We’re all waiting to hear the outcome of the latest studies, so this could change next week.  However, the current situation is that the Highways Agency will allow us a right turn filter from Cheadle only, and then only if they get the budget to do the remodelling work on the M60 slip road.

Pam, Mark and I are all working to find a way to get a safe right filter from both Gatley and Cheadle, and to get it even if the remodelling work is delayed or cancelled.

A plan has been bouncing around for a while to re-label the lanes on the northbound side of Kingsway, as it comes up to the Gatley Road junction.

At the moment, the left hand lane is for Gatley Road, South Park Road Estate, M60 Westbound and M60 Eastbound, with the other two lanes both for Manchester.

The result is the inside  (left hand) lane normally having much longer queues with the other two being emptier.  That means less efficient use of the road space and fewer cars getting through the junction in each lights change.

The proposal is to change the lane designations and markings so:

• The left hand lane goes to Gatley Road, South Park Road Estate and M60 Westbound.
• The middle lane goes to M60 Eastbound
• The right hand lane goes to Manchester

All well and good, but what about cyclists?

Someone cycling to Manchester would have to pull across two busy lanes and get into the outside lane of this fast-moving dual carriageway - not ideal.

So what are the alternatives?

Following the advice in “Cyclecraft“, I go along Kingswy sticking to the left hand side of the road.  When I reach the first motorway sliproad, I start cycling down it.  Then I stop and, when it’s safe, I cross the sliproad at 90 degrees - the shortest path across.  I do the same thing for the next slip road, then again on the north side of the Mersey to get back to the left of the road.

Cycling down the middle, or outside, lane is a lot more dangerous (and scarier), as is cycling down the line where the slip road leaves the main road.

But that’s just me.  Better cyclists often prefer to take the quickest route - straight down the middle lane - and less confident cyclists go through Cheadle and past the Alex, avoiding that section of road altogether.

So my question is - how can we improve that section of Kingsway for cyclists?  Solutions can’t cost a fortune and need to be realistic.

For example, we could send cyclists onto the South Park Road Estate, under the bridge there, and then make the east side of Kingsway a dual footpath/cycleway with dropped kerbs , cut back foliage and that sort of thing.

Ideas please!

Residents at the north end of Oak Road and Oakfield Avenue were recently asked their preference on two different parking restriction schemes.

Over 80% asked for option 2, which was to have two-hour parking (with no return within two hours) along that northern section of Oak Road, plus junction protection around Oakfield Avenue to stop people blocking the junction.

That will now be implemented.

But there are a couple of other things to say on this.

First, stopping all-day parking there won’t suddenly make all those parkers vanish.  What I’d expect to happen is that most will find other places to park but, spread out a bit more, will cause less inconvenience to residents. (Some may decide to come in by bus or get a parking permit for the car park).

Second, there’s an issue with Oakfield Avenue which currently has no parking restrictions but is just too narrow to have cars parking all the way down it.  We’re looking again to get the right balance between residents parking and single or double yellow lines on Oakfield Avenue to ensure that residents and their visitors can park but the street isn’t blocked to ambulances, dustcarts and similar.

Good news first - the failed green light I reported two days ago has been fixed.

Some other issues I took a look at this morning:

• There’s a section of the wall on the Gatley Hill side of Styal Road where a few bricks are missing, opposite 22 Styal Road.
• Although the trees growing in the woods and overhanging Styal Road near Church Road have been cut back - so you don’t hit your head as you walk along - there are still some that obscure the traffic lights, making it a very dark walk at this time of year.
• There’s some foliage growing out over the pavement from the railway, where Gatley Road passes under the railway bridge (Network Rail should cut this back).

A couple of months ago, Mark Hunter and I met with a Council officer to look at the issue of parking restrictions on Coniston Road, on Gatley’s South Park Road Estate.

We were concerned that the parking restrictions down Coniston Road and the roads off are, to be honest, a bit of a mess.  There are two totally different sets of parking restrictions (some parts have no parking on Saturday mornings, others weekday daytime restrictions).  Other lines seem to have been overpainted so it’s not clear whether they’re single or double and the junction of Coniston with Kingsway isn’t clearly protected from parking.

The Council have now sent out letters asking residents for their opinions.  I’d like to get this right - not to have too many yellow lines where they’re not needed but, at the same time, make sure we stop parking where it needs to be stopped.

If you live in the area and you’ve received a consultation paper, please complete and return it: make your views count and help us make the right decision.

Stockport Council are only responsible for maintaining temporary traffic lights.

If the lights are permanent you will need to report the details to Greater Manchester Urban Traffic Control (GMUTC.)

GMUTC are responsible for the control and maintenance of the traffic signal network in Greater Manchester.

Their contact details are:

General Office: 0161 247 3175
Fault Control Room: 0845 600 1220
General fax: 0161 228 1530
Email: gmutc@manchester.gov.uk

Mornings like this I can live without!

On the Council side, I’ve reported a faulty green light on the traffic lights by the newsagents on Gatley Road, been working on how to crack the parking issues on Oakfield Avenue in Cheadle, chased up the poor condition of the alleyway from Gatley Station past Brentwood Drive to Gatley Road and had a long chat about the Tatton.

Work was an accountancy morning, so less fun.  Now off to have some lunch.

I took an hour out yesterday afternoon to cycle around west Gatley.  Starting out across the Carrs (where the top meadow has now been mown and work is being planned for the ponds), I headed along Lorna Grove and Dingle Grove, Altrincham Road, Park Road, Mount Grove, Cranston Grove, Malvern Avenue, Brookdale Road, Stonepail Close, Greenbank Avenue, Styal Road, around Baxter Park, then onto Windsor Avenue, Willcott Road, Clifton Drive, Barngate Road and Newby Drive.

OK, I’ll confess it was partly because I enjoy cycling around the local villages, but there was a point to it all.  In addition to speaking to a few people, I was once again on the trail of those nasty potholes and dodgy pavements.

So here are some I’ll be reporting to the Council shortly:

• Pothole on Park Road by the junction with Cranston Drive
• Pothole on Windsor Avenue near the junction with Park Road
• Dropped paving stone near 5 Brookdale Road
• Pothole just down from 4 Stonepail Close
• Several paving stones dangerously sticking up on Highcrest Avenue: outside numbers 16/18, 12/14, 8/10, 4/6.
• Pavement in poor condition by tree outside numbers 35/37 Halstead Grove
• Dropped paving stone outside 46 Halstead Grove
• Pothole by manhole cover on Church Road outside A&I supplies (by Gatley Green).

There - wasn’t that exciting?  If there’s a street issue that you spot, like potholes, dodgy pavements, overgrowing foliage or broken streetlamps, let me know.

Another item from the Cheadle Village Partnership meeting.

There’s a small area you probably know near to the White Hart pub in Cheadle.  By Gatley Road, there’s a nice flagged area with a few benches and the flagstones were stolen a while ago.

Since 2005, this area has actually been privately owned and maintained by the owners of North House (the building directly behind it).  It is not currently maintained or owned by the Council.

There was some discussion at the meeting of whether the Council should take over maintance again.   This is something I’ll be looking into.

I attended the meeting of the Acorn, Ash and Chestnut Avenues Residents Association at Cheadle Library yesterday evening.

Among discussions of anti-social behaviour (not too much at the moment, thankfully) and dog mess there were a couple I’d like to mention in more detail.

Young people in the area are currently being consulted over whether they’d like to see a games facility of some sort on the park - over near the allotments.

Everyone’s talking about a MUGA - Multi-User Games Area.  I didn’t know what a MUGA was, but now I know - it’s one of those areas with a hard surface, fencing around the outside and lines/nets/facilities for things like football and basketball - all designed to be hard-wearing and long-lasting.

To go ahead, young people in the area will be involved in both deciding what happens and applying for a large chunk of the money.  The idea is that, rather than dropping something from on high, young people get what they want and have a sense of ownership.

The experience we have from elsewhere  - including other sites around Stockport Borough, is that it leads to facilities that are better used and less vandalised.

Another issue that came up is street signs, which are both confusing and misleading as you enter the avenues.  The suggestion has been made to position street signs on the side of houses (one is already).  This will be looked at.

The next meeting will be on Tuesday 13th October, 6.30pm in the Community Room at Cheadle Library.  All residents of Acorn, Ash and Chestnut Avenues in Cheadle are welcome to attend.   The Association is also looking for more people interested to sit on the committee - not too time-consuming.

On the car park side of the footpath between Cambridge Road and Gatley Station car park, the concrete bollard is badly damaged - sheared off at the base.  I’ve reported it to the Council, asking them to fix it if it’s down to them or let me know if it’s Network Rail.

Just a few of the things I’ve been up to in the last few days:

• The graffiti on the pavement at the top of Ashfield Road (near Cheddle Lodge) and on the junction box on Ashfield Road/Whitegates reported for cleaning.
• Fallen tree branches partially blocking the alleyway running from Wilmslow Road past Danesbury Rise and Whitegates to Ashfield Road reported for removal.
• On Old Hall Road, Gatley, foliage at the corner of the old cemetary overhanging the pavement has been reported to be cut back.
• Council chased on mowing the grass on Gatley Carrs and the field behind Gatley Hill House.
• Reported problem paving stone outside 16 Appleby Road, Gatley
• I’ve asked Council officers to look at double yellow lines both at the junction of Stonepail Road/Church Road in Gatley and on Wilmslow Road, Cheadle around the entrance to Whitegates (the home) and Grange Park Road.
• I’ve the Council to report back to me on litter clearing in Scholes Field, so we can work towards getting it done better (not sure whether more bins are what’s needed yet).

I was really pleased that all the hard work over the last couple of years to get the library end of Ashfield Road adopted by the Council has paid off.  Once the Council legally owns the road, it can put in proper parking bays and restrictions and police them sensibly.

The legal process still has a little way to go: a last month for objections will be up on 16th October, after which everything hopefully starts moving.

I’ve also reported graffiti on Ashfield Road to the Council: the two bits of spray painting on the pavement up by Cheddle Lodge and the graffiti on the green junction box near the junction with Whitegates Road.

The loose paving stone in front of Ladbrokes on Church Road, Gatley, has now been fixed down.  Didn’t have a chance this afternoon to check the others (between Elm Road and Gatley Green) but I’ll do that later today.

Update: I checked the others yesterday evening.  Five or six were marked up and all seemed to be fixed.  I’m really pleased we’re now getting these sorted.

Good to see the pothole I reported a couple of weeks ago in front of the Gatley Primary staff car park on Hawthorn Road has been repaired.  I also reported the potholes at the junction of Hawthorn and Burnside so hopefully they’ll be done in the next few weeks.

Delemere Road is being resurfaced (not one I claim any credit for, but good news).

Two problems with the pavements on Appleby Road have been repaired, a third (in front of 16 Appleby) I’ve reported for fixing.

Very glad to see we’re making progress on pavement repairs - hopefully we’ll see more soon, including Church Road.

I’ve reported the following issues on Turnfield Road and Cringle Drive:

1. Pothole outside 8 Turnfield Road, Cheadle, by kerb

2. Pothole outside 30 Cringle Drive, Cheadle, by kerb

3. Tree outside 10 Cringle Drive needs branches cut back

Potholes reported:

1. A pothole in the centre of Firs Road, Gatley outside 6 Firs Road.

2. Several potholes near the top of Fairway, Gatley.

3. Pothole by kerb opposite 19 Linksway, Gatley

I’m also working on improving the passageway from Fairway to Scholes Field, improving the police presence around the area and getting nettles cleared away.

Seems today is potholing day!

These all reported to the Council.  Should be marked up in the next few days and fixed in the next month or two.
1. By kerb opposite 1 Newboult Road
2. Two potholes in the centre of the road outside 2 Newboult Road.
3. Several potholes along the centre of the road outside 6 and 8 Newboult Road.
4. Several potholes along the centre of the road outside 20,22,24 & 26 Newboult.
5. Pothole outside 51 Newboult, about 40cm from kerb.
6. Pothole in centre of road outside 59 Newboult.

I’ve reported some potholes on Hawthorn Road, Gatley to the Counci.  They should be marked up in the next few days and repaired in October.

1. Several potholes at the junction of Hawthorn, Burnside and Cedar, including two around manhole covers.

2. Pothole by the entrance to Gatley Primary School car park.

I spent some time this morning walking around the South Park Road Estate looking for issues.  Here’s my list - all already reported to the Council.

 Potholes

1. By kerb opposite 74 South Park Road
2. Around grid by 68 South Park Road
3. Along edge of road opposite 66-68 South Park Road (section about 2-3m long)
4. By drive of 64 South Park Road
5. Junction of South Park Road and Coniston Road
6. By kerb outside 40 South Park Road
7. By kerb opposite 30 South Park Road
8. By kerb opposite 32 South Park Road
9. On Mardale Drive, by junction with South Park Road
10. By grid outside 12 Mardale Drive
11. By kerb outside 9 South Park Road
12. By kerb outside 7 South Park Road
13. By kerb outside 8 South Park Road
14. Centre of road outside 6 South Park Road
15. By kerb opposite 3 and 5 Mardale Drive (2-3 metres long)
16. By kerb outside 7 Mardale Drive
17. Outside 178 Kingsway service road, centre of road
18. Opposite 180/182 Kingsway service road, 30cm from far kerb.
19. By kerb, 188 Kingsway Service Road
20. Opposite 18 Coniston Road, by kerb

These should be marked up in the next few days and repaired in October.

Grass and weeds

I’ve asked for the grass and weeds growing along the edges of the roads and some grids to be sprayed to get rid of it.

Graffiti on BT box

I’ve askedfor the graffiti on the BT box by the underpass to be cleaned off.

This is, of course, in addition to the work done and in progress to sort out the rat-run, other potholes reported and either marked up or repaired (e.g. on Coniston, South Park Road, Brentwood) and the two trees near the entrance to Brogden Drive that the Council have promised to remove as a priority.