Oakley Village Petition in Objection to Hampshire County Council Highways' Proposed Narrowing of Hill Road & Rectory Road, Oakley, Hants

Narrowing roads in and around Oakley will cause even more congestion.

I find it hard to believe that a Highways Engineer would have agreed to such a ridiculous proposal which would cause complete chaos in an already worsening situation. You only have to observe the volume of traffic which already uses the road at critical times to realise that this is not a viable, sensible or properly reasoned suggestion. Pinch points and traffic calming require policing, this of course will not happen in the current or future climate.

I don't agree with the proposed pinch point proposed at the Hill Road / Barn Lane junction. With residents parking outside their homes it is already a nuisance to cars ,buses and Bakers lories.

As a resident of Hill Road I dread the thought of what this will do to Hill Road I think this idea is just to make the building of new houses more acceptable to planners!

I am concerned that people who make the decisions will not have to live with the consequences. Hill Road has over the last two years has become a nightmare at times, with cars parking adding to this. What was a pleasant village centre is being increasing spoilt.

The thought of more traffic anywhere through Oakley is bad enough. This scheme will just add chaos and inevitable danger to pedestrians.

This is a ridiculous prposal poorly thought through. Have the back room bureaucrats even been to the site? Is it going to take a serious accident to bring them to their senses? All too late then!!!!!

We live on Hil Road and feel that these pinch point schemes are poorly thought through

These proposals don't seem to have considered a worst-case scenario. If a bus, a school bus, a fire engine and an ambulance arrive from different directions at the same time the result would be chaos.

I have already raised objection to the narrowing of Hill Road during the planning application for the houses on Barn Lane. I live on Hill Road and can testify to how busy it is and how congested it can be. Like many residents in the area, I have no option of off-road parking and because the road is already very narrow, my car was quite badly damaged a year or so ago by a passing bus. I know that neighbours in the area have also suffered damage to their property. Narrowing the road further will inevitably lead to further incidents of this type. Hill Road forms the bus route through the village, including that for several school/college services. It also carries some other, fairly heavy traffic on a regular basis. Considering the scope of the proposal, it is likely to cause the road to become, quite literally, impassable at times. The proposal seems to take no account whatsoever of residents' need to park on the road. What are they to do? Block the road entirely? This proposal is only being made to supported the proposed building of houses on Barn Lane (a proposal that has already been highly criticized and had planning refused). Assuming that the objection to the Barn Lane houses is about to be overturned/ignored by the local authority, this narrowing of Hill Road will still not satisfy the road safety concerns that prompted it in the first instance. Residents shall still need to park on the road (or, probably, on the widened pavement as there would be nowhere else), and therefore the junction with Barn Lane would still continue to be obscured – essentially completely negating the purpose of the proposal. In summary, this proposal would be extremely inconvenient for residents, will cause considerable traffic congestion, and won't have the desired effect anyway

These 2 stretches of road are already busy, 1 is lined with parked cars. Making these roads narrower will only make traffic flow worse.

Traffic flow on these two roads is already very difficult and public transport access is very important on Hill Rd in particular.

The proposal included in the Gleeson appeal to upgrade rights of way 736, 9a and 8a is a very bad idea. This is offered as an incentive, in conjunction with changes to Hill and Rectory Roads, by Gleeson to the BDBC Planners and Hants Highways as an incentive to support their 85 home appeal. These non-overlooked paths, particularly if lit in any way, would offer a meeting place for all sorts of nefarious, nocturnal activity. Oakley residents have democratically approved the new home numbers in the Oakley Neighbourhood Plan. This plan should be upheld in the name of sustainability and democracy, otherwise what’s the point of the Neighbourhood Planning process? I am a Neighbourhood Watch Coordinator.

These two roads are already too narrow for the existing traffic flows. Any further restrictions will seriously add to congestion and potentially increase traffic flows on other already congested roads in the village.

Narrowing of these two roads will cause major congestion problems with the volume of traffic now using these roads

Hill Road and Rectory Road are far too narrow already, and having lived in the village for 44 years I have seen a huge increase in traffic in that time. This will only lead to traffic congestion on a large scale

Don't change the roads, they are fine as they are!!

Hill Road already has enough pinch points with parked vehicles without artificially adding further hazards

In objecting, I am in total agreement with the vast majority of adverse comments already made. Of particular concern is the safety of pedestrians, uppermost being that of children attending and returning from school along Hill Road/Oakley Lane in what inevitably would become an even greater hazardous location. Also the potential danger to all vehicle users should not be disregarded, not to mention the utter traffic chaos likely to prevail should this proposal be approved.

Hill Road is already a narrow road which is a bus route and one of the main roads through Oakley. There are always parked cars and at school times the road becomes very busy so to consider a pinch point would lead to traffic jams making it difficult for residents to gain access to the road and the possibility of accidents involving both adults and children. Another 85 homes at Beech Tree Close would only to the chaos.