Winchester and District Traffic Study - TrustNews Sept 17
Notes of a meeting between City of Winchester Trust and HCC in May 2017
Keith Leaman and Richard Baker of the City of Winchester Trust met Councillor Rob Humby (Executive Member for Environment and Transport), Frank Baxter and Sam Clarke (Transport Strategy).
The transport team's current scope of work included vehicle movement, pedestrian circulation, buses and bicycle potential, not only Winchester City but across Winchester District as well. There had already been meetings with both the bus and railway companies; this interface was ongoing.
Traffic monitoring started in January using the latest technology; the monitors record vehicle movements around Winchester on a continuous basis. The purpose is to record whether traffic stops in Winchester or is passing through. The fact-gathering and evaluation is likely to take place over a year in order to record, for example, schools in session/school holidays/Christmas fair/motorway closure effects etc.
It would be impossible to prepare a full strategy for Winchester in advance of some of the schemes currently being considered in the centre of Winchester; so the intention is to evaluate schemes coming forward this year and attempt to forecast the impact of parking and vehicle strategy using the knowledge gained so far - risky, but considered possible!
All potential schemes in and around Winchester are considered; this includes sites not yet brought forward. The traffic movement fact-finding will continue to provide a movement assessment every day for the foreseeable future, thereby upgrading the information for many years to come. So this provides the basic information necessary for any strategic thinking.
The traffic planners intended to present their findings to a forum which would include the City of Winchester Trust. The purpose of the meeting from the traffic planners’ point of view would be to ask questions of stakeholders about their expectations for a movement strategy. In order to expedite such a meeting, the planners would provide scenarios to choose from, giving the knock-on effect in Winchester for each of their option proposals (not only for Winchester City but the District as well).
Car parking is part of the study. Both HCC and WCC are contributing to the overall strategy and this is the first time that such expansive joined-up thinking has ever taken place. There are two Councillors (Rob Humby and Jan Warwick) who span ‘the gap’ and are members of both City and County Councils. Andy Hickman (WCC) represents the officers and liaises with the County.