West Mersea Neighbourhood Plan
Appendix 2 - West Mersea Town Council proposals for highway improvements
The list below is based on a traffic survey carried out by the Council in January 2014, details of which are held at the Council Offices.
1. Victoria Esplanade
The blind bend between the Two Sugars Cafe, the Willoughby Car Park and public toilets, is a hazard for pedestrians, particularly for children coming up from the beach unaccompanied to visit the toilets. This danger is compounded by roadside parking in the winter months when the official car parks are closed. There should be parking restrictions in this area throughout the year and traffic calming introduced either side of the blind bend.
2. Barfield Road/High Street/High Street North Junction
Traffic going north from the High Street and straight on into High Street North are able to do so at speed causing a hazard at the exit to Tesco's car park and the junction of Mersea Avenue. Traffic calming measures, such as an extension of the pavement on the west side of the junction, would mitigate the risks.
3. Kingsland Road/Barfield Road Junction
This junction is in the vicinity of both school entrances with buses using the access in both directions. Vehicles often take these corners at speed and traffic calming measures would assist.
4. Elmwood Drive on to Kingsland Road.
Cars often park nose to tail at the entrance to Elmwood Drive when using facilities in Kingsland Road. This creates a blind one way corner where cars even reverse back out on to the main Kingsland Road. Double yellow lines or residents only parking would alleviate this hazard. (Petition from residents, August 2011)
5. Yorick Road and the High Street junction
On the bus route with a difficult turn for buses into Yorick Road from the High Street. Car parking is the biggest problem along this whole stretch of road and double yellow lines with passing bays would assist with traffic flow.
6. Firs Chase
Over the years this has become the main feed to the Waterfront rather than Coast Road and it is a tree-lined lane without pavements. Cars often take this road at speed and traffic calming is thought to be essential. 20 mph from the point where the pavement ends and the road narrows at the top of the hill down to Coast Road Junction would assist.
7. Coast Road
When the Coast Road car park is full, most of the visiting traffic carries to the end of the cul de sac and then has to turn around by reversing into The Lane, which has a 'No Entry' sign, in order to return. Some park, even though there are yellow lines, and many disable badge holders park on both sides anyway. This causes great congestion and danger to youngster manoeuvring sailing dinghies, or restrictions for crew trying to get to the Lifeboat Station. This should be a 'No Entry apart from Access' zone. (Petition from residents undated).
There has also been considerable pressure to introduce traffic Calming measures along the length of Coast Road. There have been a number of accidents caused either by speed or drivers taking in the view.
8. Strood Access road B1025 on and off Mersea Island.
This is the only road access to Mersea Island and West Mersea. The predicted high tides do come to the road edge 369 out of the 706 high tides for year 2021, equivalent 52%. The sea level rises predicted to 2060 will increase this to between 71 to 79%.1 & 2 that the tide comes to the road. Whilst these are predicted heights the weather and atmospheric pressure do effect the predicted tidal heights.
The effect of the tides blocking the road causes traffic hold ups for anything from a few minutes to several hours often resulting in the mainland traffic queues extending several kilometres back to Pete Tye common and beyond. The increasing number of dwellings and increased tourism is creating more vehicles needing to access the Island. During the period 2009 to 2019 the traffic on the B1025 has increased by 15.7%.3
9. Parking Prohibition lines.
There have been a number of additional Yellow and Red Lines put down under the Covid 19 regulation order. These do need to be reviewed by West Mersea Town Council at some point in the future. This would then have allowed for time to see how these restrictions have worked or not.
1Southern North Sea storm surge event of 5th December 2013: Water levels, waves and coastal impacts.
Published 15th April 2015.
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/42133386.pdf
2 https://www.theccc.org.uk/2020/04/21/how-much-more-climate-change-is-inevitable-for-the-uk
3 https://www.theccc.org.uk/2020/04/21/how-much-more-climate-change-is-inevitable-for-the-uk