11/1/2007

Letters

Councillors seem unable to take tough action

Although I have lived in Bagshot for nearly 30 years, I have had to work away from home for most of that time and have been unable to take a close interest in local affairs. It was thus in the spirit of enlightenment that I attended a Meet the Councillors session at St Anne’s Hall.

The meeting was poorly attended but four Surrey Heath and parish councillors were present, all Liberal Democrats, as they were keen to remind us. One of the councillors was declared to be the party’s prospective parliamentary candidate. The village’s county councillor, who I believe is Conservative, was not present.

The councillors were unfailingly courteous and, as far as I could judge, gave truthful and candid answers. The two principal subjects discussed were drainage and traffic through the village. Drainage proved uncontentious. It is apparently the county’s responsibility and everyone agreed that it should be improved.

Traffic, on the other hand, was clearly a sensitive subject. Bagshot, in my view, can be reasonably described as a free-fire zone for motorists. Traffic to and from the M3 is allowed to roar through the village day and night, despite the existence of a bypass. There is no pedestrian crossing in the High Street, no signs encouraging motorists to slow down, making a thoroughly unpleasant environment for residents and shoppers and a nightmare for the elderly and children.

When I asked the four councillors why most comparable nearby centres of population, including Windlesham and Lightwater, have an array of measures (signs, crossings, humps, chicanes, speed cameras etc) to discourage speed and unnecessary through traffic while Bagshot has almost nothing, they seemed baffled and bemused.

Eventually, they conceded that there might have been commercial pressures. After more thought, they produced the ultimate riposte. Every national survey, they averred, has demonstrated that speeding is committed by locals, leading presumably to the (unstated) conclusion that people in Bagshot like things the way they are, despite the spate of recent accidents. A crossing might be installed but not soon — and didn’t I know how expensive crossings were.

It seems to me that the traffic problem in Bagshot can very easily be solved by closing off access to the A30 (which is dangerous anyway) thus leading to a pleasant village centre in which shopping, eating and drinking can flourish, as in Egham High Street.

However, I have no confidence that the pusillanimous four have the political leadership and courage (which appears to exist in the other villages cited) to press for any such thing. It is one thing to campaign for the library, against closure of Frimley Park or replacement of the Bagshot Clock, which no-one is likely to oppose, and another to take tough decisions which might court some unpopularity, even though they are demonstrably the right thing to do.

Before leaving the meeting, I thanked them for the one positive assistance to pedestrians in Bagshot that has occurred in recent years — changing the timing on the pedestrian crossing on the A30 — only subsequently to discover that this had been the work of the absent county councillor.

F G Curry
St Mary’s Gardens
Bagshot

First printed in: Aldershot News and Mail