Schoolchildren in Keswick dodging traffic on one of the town’s busiest roads will not be getting a pedestrian crossing after all.
The idea has effectively been scrapped at a county council meeting and now a Keswick campaigner has complained he was not told the issue was up for discussion.
Disappointed Keswick town councillor David Burn, who supports a crossing going on High Hill, said he was appalled, particularly when he had specifically told highways officers to let him know if the subject was ever being discussed at committee, so that he could provide a counter argument.
Mr Burn said: “I feel really let down that this has been put to the committee without me being told. To me, this is yet another example of Keswick really needing something and making the best case that we can and at the end of the day it’s all counted for nothing.
“We are treated like a load of idiots and that they know what’s best for Keswick, not those who live here. It looks as though we have lost the battle, and that a higher authority has denied Keswick what the town, and its elected town council, has asked for.”
County councillors sitting on a highways working group agreed a recommendation from highways officers against a formal pedestrian crossing in December. It was then rubber-stamped at a meeting in Workington of Allerdale Local Committee in January.
A “technical assessment”, or surveys, had been carried out, but the data collected concluded there was “no justification” for a controlled crossing, according to the county council, which is the highways authority.
Instead, officers recommended that upgraded traffic signs on the A5271 were sufficient to warn drivers of the hazards, along with new road markings. However, the Reminder understands that one of the worries is that there has been speculation that the crossing’s primary use might be to end up facilitating children nipping across the busy road to a nearby shop to buy sweets and snacks.
But with the county council being abolished on April 1, the issue isn’t likely to be resolved any time soon.
County councillor Tony Lywood, a member of the local committee whose period of office runs out in two months, did not agree that the crossing idea was completely over.
Cllr Lywood said county highways officers had maintained there was no “feasible” place for the crossing without impacting on home owners’ residential access – which Mr Burn disagrees with.
However, the panel did not want the issue taken off the programme and some members had said a crossing might be something that the new Cumberland Council picked up, according to Mr Lywood.
Cllr Markus Campbell-Savours, who will be Keswick’s representative on the new authority, may have to pick up the baton.
He said: “As I move forward to join the new Cumberland County Council, I will always listen to local concerns about young people moving around the town and will look at the existing proposals.”
Two years ago a concerned Keswick mum started the petition which drew more than 1,200 signatures, although there was never universal agreement over where the crossing might go.
Mr Burn, who also spent months on the matter as a town council representative, still believes there is a suitable location close to Vicarage Hill, which is far away from the garage, although pedestrian crossings are implemented on roads with high volumes of accident statistics.
He sent repeated emails to highways bosses, appeared at county council meetings to argue for it, and held site visits with highways officers to discuss locations.
With a nod to the controversial new crossing which has been installed by the county council close to the Main Street/Tithebarn Street roundabout as a condition of the new Premier Inn development, he said: “I find it totally ironic that CCC recently forced the installation of a pedestrian crossing in Keswick where no one, including the town council, wanted it, yet continue to deny us the crossing we do want on High Hill.”
