BY MIKE FRESHNEY
Runnymede Borough Council allocated land for more than 5000 new homes required by Government to be built by 2030. The already congested roads were clearly inadequate to carry the existing traffic, let alone another 10000-15000 vehicles generated by the new housing.
The Government Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF) was made available for major roads schemes to be constructed to meet its objective of delivering 300,000 homes each year to meet the shortage and slow the increase in prices.
Surrey County Council, jointly with Runnymede BC were granted £41.8 M to increase the capacity and secure the free flow of traffic along the A320 from Ottershaw to the North side of Chertsey. A condition attached was that the money had to be spent by March 2024, and that Runnymede BC could only release most of the housing sites for construction and occupation when the Highways improvements had been delivered. If the money was not spent by March 2024, then it would be ‘lost’ back into the Government coffers.
The highways scheme proposals were originally ‘floated’ by Surrey CC in 2018, when it submitted them to secure its bid to the HIF Fund. Readers will not forget the ‘horrendous’ proposal for a huge roundabout at Ottershaw which was 8 times the size of the existing, cutting the Village in two and digesting a large piece of greenbelt.
Since then, SCC have produced scheme details for various sections of the A320 including adding a ‘slip lane’ on St Peters Way to enter J11 of the M25.
Ottershaw Ward Residents Association (OWARA) held its first meeting with Surrey CC and RBC in May 2018 to make representations to seek to manage , reduce the scale of proposals particularly on Ottershaw, and protect the residents’ best interests. It is only 3 years later that Surrey CC have come forward with public notification of its proposals and sought a very short and sketchy consultation of residents, despite many requests by OWARA over the past 3 years.
All the works proposed by Surrey CC have been determined, for which they need no public consultation, other than proposed roundabouts at Green Lane and Ottershaw. These require Surrey to obtain Planning consent (from their own Council!).
They propose to submit these applications and provide a short period for public representations, within the next few weeks. The scheme for Green Lane is understood to be largely settled. The scheme for the Ottershaw roundabout however is the subject of detailed discussions between Surrey CC Highways Engineers, the local County and Borough Councillors, and myself with an appointed Independent Highways Engineer.
These discussions have resulted so far in Surrey CC producing several iterations of a design for the Otter Roundabout which have minimised the scale and position to avoid undue harm to the local facilities including the Village car parking to serve Brook Hall and the Shops. The Engineers continue to examine alternative solutions and ensure traffic and pedestrian safety issues, and Surrey have yet to conclude with a final proposal. There is considerable urgency on Surrey’s behalf to conclude a final design to hit the target deadlines for construction and not lose the funding, despite the ‘lost’ 2.5 years of apparent inactivity.
By the time of this article being published, final details may become known, and OWARA will notify everyone though its website,
(www.owaira.com) with an explanation of the pros and cons of the outcome. It is inevitable however that the Otter Roundabout is expected to be increased in size significantly resulting in higher speeds around it, and greater separation of the village.
It is clear however, that the original intent to ‘increase the capacity and secure the free flow of traffic’ will not be achieved at the Ottershaw Roundabout to St Peters Way. Only 3 lanes are still to exist going north to St Peters Way roundabout which does not increase capacity, and the ‘bottleneck’ at the single lane exit from the Otter Roundabout heading to Woking on Guildford Road will remain.
Maybe people will stop using vehicles? We await results with keen anticipation.