I’ve recently discovered that my mother has started complaining. Specifically she’s had two letters printed in the Hampshire Chronicle relating to traffic flow changes in Winchester and has written a letter to Feedback about the disturbing dumbing down of The Archers and Radio 4 in general. Which is all gloriously middle class of her and I’m somewhat cringingly proud.
The Radio 4 stuff is amusing but the Winchester stuff is a bit more interesting. Being a very old and relatively small city Winchester has a traffic problem in that it was originally designed for horses. The current system is a one way inner ring-ish road which passes my mother’s house before looping back up through the centre of town (here’s a handy map) which constitutes the only way of getting from one side of the city to the other. Between her road and the middle thoroughfare are a few small roads chock full of traffic calming measures. One of these, Parchment St, has always been used as a “rat run” for people wanting to shave a few minutes off their journey. Six people living on Parchment St kicked up a fuss and the council has reversed the flow, dramatically reducing the traffic going down there and naturally pushing it back onto the main route, past my mother’s house.
The issue isn’t so much a Not In My Back Yard thing, although accusations of NIMBYitis are flying all over. It’s more that six people who knew exactly what they were getting into when they bought their houses are able to get the council to make a dramatic change to the workings of the city with little or no consultation of the hundreds of other nearby residents or the thousands of not-so-nearby residents who make up the traffic, not to mention the pedestrians who suffer the extra danger and pollution as they walk into town.
And there’s nothing unusual about this. As we know, consultation documents are always “on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard’”, but I do sympathise with the council on this one. For them, six actual real people coming together with an opinion about a problem they’ve been trying to solve for years must have been amazing. Six people who actually give a shit? Wow! Implement it now! Ask questions later!
Because if the other thousands of people who are affected by this actually took part in some kind of dialogue with the people they’ve entrusted with the job of running their city (ensuring as fair distribution of NIMBYness, if you like), or even bothered to vote for them in the first place, these six people would not have had such a great influence.
Of course when I’m hearing all this I immediately ponder how the internet could help. It’s not like geographically specific forums and mailing lists are a new idea – they were a storyline on the Archers a couple of years back after all – but they don’t seem to be working. Or rather, like every social internet thing, they only work when enough people get involved, or when there’s some specific topic or interest tying people together.
I’m thinking the problem is that people don’t actually want to deal with the organisation of their local area. That’s why they elect counsellors and pay taxes. So an online forum for discussing traffic flow is going to be as effective as the public consultation meeting Winchester council held at 9am on a Monday morning.
I’m not sure what the answer is to all this, but if anyone is involved in a solid, effective and busy local community site that deals with local government issues, I’d be intrigued to hear about it.
Winchester has a rather interesting, some might say ‘quaint’ traffic system that seem specifically designed to ensnare the unwitting motorist into a gridlocked one-way system. This is all the more amusing because of the 3/4 empty ‘Park & Ride’ system that was recently extended into the reclaimed open spaces after the construction of the new M3 motorway.
The problems with traffic become even worse during the summer when tourists pour in to the city centre and get lost due to the appaling signage that seems to premeate throughout the whole country, not just Winchester (as a former motorcylist this problem with signs become more accute because it is hard to consult a map on a bike).
More amusing still is that the high street, disignated a ‘Pedestrian Zone’ (between 11 and 3, why no 9 til 5 when the shops are open?) has buses driving through it, and no kerbs to delineate between the road and footway. It has also been decided that goods vehicles can load and unload on the one-way system after 9.30am – thus causing even more traffic gridlock.
Winchester was recently designated a polution zone, causing the council to create an ‘action plan’ to reduce polution in the city centre. This polution is aggrevated by the empty ‘Park & Ride’ buses that drive round and round the city all day belching out diesel fumes :)
Having worked as a parking attendant in Winchester it is my experience that the people of Winchester like nothing better than to complain about parking and traffic, whilst they themselves feel it is okay to have 3 cars and park where they like…the problems of course are not of their making but the fault of ‘the council’. Historically the city has tried two-way flow, one-way flow and the direction of traffic along Parchment, Middle and Lower Brook Streets has changed over the years. The basic underlying problem of volume of traffic has only gotten worse, and unless the council decides to shut some of the city centre car parks this will not change.
I am not convinced that R4 has dumbed down overly, though I will admit that the profussion of what I will call ‘Radio 2′ voices has started to jar a bit.
Interesting in that Winchester was, I believe, the first “city” to have a bypass in the UK. As is so often the case, being first is not always good. Example: British Rail, or whatever it’s now called.
The lamentable state of the UK motorway system is due mainly to the developments that have happened along them over the years. Instead of being a fast route from city A to city B they are now rat-runs for shoppers going to out of town retail parks, Hedge End being a prime example.
Newbury has had 2 bypasses over the years. The first was effective until the town crept out towards, and then over, the bypass…so they had to build another one. And what have they done now, yep youn guessed it, they have allowed development alongside the NEW bypass. So in another 10 years we’ll be building another one.
The problem is that people don’t want to live in cities. Urban regeneration is a real problem (as Winchester is finding out now) and developers much prefer to build houses on green field sites. The government seems hell bent on trying to build more and more houses in the south and south east in a fruitless attempt to keep pace with the housing shortage, rather than address the problem of over concentration of wealth and jobs in this small corner of the country.
how does your mother think the archers has been dumbed down? (yes, i actually do listen to it.)
I’d like to know that too. Does your Mum have specific examples of this dumbing down?
I’ve asked her to comment on this herself – maybe she’ll even post up her email to Feedback (hint, hint).
Slight misunderstanding here, Pete! It was not the programme itself but the promotional trailer for the Archers which followed the Archers last Thursday evening, (sounding like a bad piece of cinema without the pictures), which prompted me to: a) reflect on the sensational nature of so much of the presentation on radio four and b) to fear that the Archers could be about to go the way of a very poor TV soap opera, if not protected from such influences at large in radio four!
Addicted? Not really, but The Archers is still always a welcome radio backdrop if I am around and not doing anything else at the time.
In the past, when decorating or be ill in bed, radio four stayed on all day. Now there is too much in the manner of presentation that jars for that to happen. I still manage to hear some gems though, such as the ‘Tales from Ireland’ which were broadcast in the afternoons last week.
Dave C is quite right to talk about the pollution in Winchester. This is what we all need to get sorted…and we all need to work on it! The only difference which changing the traffic flow to suit one small set of residents makes is to intensify the pollution in an even smaller area. It solves nothing for the greater good.
thx for this site im using it for my H/WK for GCSE geography and yea radio 4 rocks im like the only one i know hu listns to it but when i go to bed its always gd especially ther business programs and stuff it actually helps with GCSEs…. thx oh and MEGADETH RULE!!!
hello people i’m a new winchester resident and am having a hard time of it in winchester,
i’m not a commuter who travels into winchester everyday i’m just a chef who works in reading and i travel to work each day in my car.
the problem i have is i recently paid for a residents parking permit which entitles me to park in any of the paking bays within the “R” zone (the closest to my home) and as of yet i’ve only been able to park with in the designated zones a total of 3 times in 2 months.
now to compensate for this the council allow us to park on single yellow lines and long stay carparks for free between the times of 6pm and 8am and sat and sun are free in these carparks, unfortunately for me i’m not a 9 to 5 worker, i work un-sociable hours as does my other half, (she doesn’t have a car) depending on my shift i am often at home after 2 in the evening and have to use the carparks to park my car, or i start late say at 10:30 and as there are never any spaces in the “R” zone have to leave my car in the carpark and pay to park(or risk a clamp).sorry to rant on but as you used to work within the parking department i thought perhaps you could give a little insight before i approach the councillar with my problems.
i’ve been to the parking office and suggested that people within the “R” zone be allowed to park within the multi storey carpark for free at anytime, and there suggestion was to purchase a season ticket which is favoured by commuters (a season ticket cost something like £1000)
i said “i live in winchester why should i buy a season ticket to park in a town in which i live”
it seems daft to me it is almost like priority is given to outsiders and residents can get lost.
an example of this is the residents parking within the block of flats i live in, i’d say 90percent of the spaces are “THE PROPERTY OF BARCLAYS BANK” whilst i think it is important to keep big businesses in winchester i think people who live here should get priority, do you think i’m wrong about this?
and my last comment is about our councillar the one in charge of parking, my first impression would be that this person has his own drive way so has no need to worry about parking, but no in reality our councillar doesn’t even reside in winchester, he lives in southampton. ha.
like i’ve said before sorry to moan but i feel let down by the town in which i choose to live in.
thanks for reading.