CONTACT

Mail :	Road Safety Team Plymouth City Council Plymouth PL1 2AA
Phone :	01752 668000
Email :	roadsafety@plymouth.gov.uk
Fax :	01752 304922

Whitleigh safer and sustainable travel 2011

What is Whitleigh safer and sustainable travel?

This is a scheme we have developed to promote walking, cycling and bus travel in your area, as well as improve road safety. Working in partnership with your Neighbourhood Regeneration Team, the Police, local schools and health teams, we would like to encourage more children to walk and cycle to school, improve bus passenger satisfaction and make roads safer for everyone.

About the scheme

The Council has put in place 20mph speed limits outside schools and a number of schools have had road safety measures introduced. However, the implementation of limits outside a school does not make the rest of the journey to school any safer, or provide the wider benefits for the community. We want to look at ways of improving road safety and local travel that benefit whole communities instead of one small area.

Whitleigh has a busy community of about 7,300 people, and schools that serve many other areas of Plymouth. However, Whitleigh also has the highest number of child pedestrian collisions in Plymouth, which is why we are looking at piloting a new, 'low-infrastructure' approach to road safety in the area that may involve reducing speeds without traditional traffic calming measures.

The data

The table below shows the five year collision data for Whitleigh, which is provided by Devon and Cornwall Police. The locations of the child pedestrian collisions in Whitleigh are shown on the collision data map below, and in the consultation leaflet for the scheme which can be downloaded from the consultation page.

Five year collision data for Whitleigh (1 December 2005 to 30 November 2010)

Casualties	Serious	Slight	Total
Vehicle driver	3	40	43
Passenger	0	7	7
Motorcycle rider	2	11	13
Cyclist	0	2	2
Pedestrian	2	16	18
Other	0	0	0
Total	7	76	83

In the period from December 2005 to December 2010 a total of 18 pedestrian casualties were recorded, of which 12 (67 per cent) were children.

The locations of the collisions recorded in the table above are shown on the map below.

Whileigh five year collision data locations

Your involvement

We asked you to tell us what would make it easier and safer to walk, cycle and catch buses in your area by thinking and feeding back to us about reducing speeds, and barriers to walking, cycling and public transport. We held some consultation events in Whitleigh where you told us about areas needing improvement. These areas are marked on the map below.

Map of Whitleigh showing areas needing improvement [386KB]

More information about previous and future consultation events in Whitleigh is available on the consultation page. There are also regular neighbourhood meetings where you can have a say on what matters most in the area that you live. Visit the Whitleigh neighbourhood page for meeting dates and locations.

Consultation feedback

Using the feedback from Whitleigh residents and key stakeholders, a programme has been developed which will reduce average traffic speeds, make it easier and safer for people to cross the road and encourage people to travel sustainably to and from Whitleigh.

We have also completed a full consultation report and a proposed programme summary which are available to download below.

Consultation feedback - final report [122KB]

Proposed programme summary [6.63MB]

A summary of the key consultation findings and the schemes which are being delivered as part of the initiative are available on the consultation page. A full construction calendar is also available.

How to get involved in the next stage of the scheme

An integral part of the Whitleigh: Safer and Sustainable Travel scheme is the inclusion of trees within the scheme. Plymouth Transport and Highways is liaising with Plymouth Tree Partnership and Whitleigh Open Spaces Project to choose trees for several of the Whitleigh gateway features. In June there will be a series of site meetings to discuss the issues involved and select the most appropriate species for each place. The meeting times and locations will be added to the consultation page shortly. There will also be notices on display near the planting sites, so look out for these if you would like to be involved in the discussions.