Monthly topic – March 2010 - Traffic problem St Olave's Ward
This month Councillor Bob Cockle talks about traffic problems in St Olave's Ward.

As you may be aware, St Edmundsbury Borough Council has at the moment and in principle agreed to carry out a survey on car parking in St Olave’s ward and Mildenhall estate. When both estates were planned nobody thought that in future years residents would have to rely on the private car. Now in many cases there is more than one vehicle per household.

There is no doubt that this is getting more serious. More and more vehicles are parking on the grass verges. This is causing damage and is unsightly for many of the roads. But what are residents to do? In some cases if they park outside their property, this will block the road. There are areas where there are car parking places at the back of houses, but these are unlit and some residents are afraid to use them.

Roads such as Northumberland Avenue, and St Olave’s Road, become very heavy with parked traffic. St Olave’s Rd is very bad when there is a football match. Both are prime bus routes. There are people who park at bus stops, mainly because the road is not marked with the relevant sign. At one time this was a traffic offence; so was parking after dark facing the wrong way.

Should we have more double yellow lines? Should we have parking on one side of the road only? Should we build more garages?  Should we have more dropped kerbs? As you can appreciate any of these would cost money, both to install and to police.

As one of St Olave’s ward members, I drive around this area quite regularly and I have to say that perhaps nothing can be done. The sensitivity of most drivers is very apparent; they do seem to appreciate that buses, ambulances and other heavy vehicles must use the roads. Let us hope that the survey throws up some solutions.