The Meon Valley Road A32

The Meon Valley Road - A32

by Jeremy Wood

The story so far

Hampshire County Council is embracing innovative ideas to assist in making the Meon Valley Road safer for all users whilst causing the least effect on the rural nature of the road.

Thanks go to CPRE Hampshire volunteers who conducted road surveys when they noticed an increasing number of signs on rural roads which were often larger and more brightly coloured than traditional signs. These signs have a detrimental effect on the landscape and reduce the differential between one county and another as well as between a rural and an urban route.

Reducing clutter

CPRE believes that rural roads can be made safer for all users by using less intrusive means which change the aspect of the road for the driver and change the whole road environment on entering a village. Discussions took place with a number of road engineers round the country, the Transport and Road Research Laboratory at Bracknell as well as 'in-house' CPRE expertise and we published a set of Principles for Road Signage in Rural Areas.

The BBC became interested and interviewed Christopher Napier, (CPRE Hampshire Branch chairman) and Christopher then briefed Ken Thornber, Leader of Hampshire County Council on our ideas.

HCC then invited CPRE Hampshire volunteers to survey the A32 with their traffic engineers to see what we would do to make the road safer. This led to a number of surveys which included representatives from HCC, their consultants for the scheme, Mott Gifford, the police and CPRE.

HCC arranged a meeting for all the parishes along the A32 from West Meon to Wickham - the section under evaluation - to explain a new way of looking at road safety and to listen to comments. Presentations were made by Christopher Napier CPRE, HCC's Highway Safety Group, HCC's Landscape Planning and Heritage Group and Ben Hamilton-Baillie a well known consultant on the environment and traffic management.

Planned actions

Some action along the route will take place this year, but other proposals will have to wait till adequate funds are available. In the meantime, HCC have drawn on the CPRE Hampshire Principles in a new traffic-calming scheme at Selborne. They developed these ideas with Selborne Parish Council and arrived at a series of improvements to the B3006 as it passes through the village. The current 96 signs on 43 separate posts are being reduced to 48 signs on 13 posts and the size of sign has been reduced. The central white line is being removed, the pavement widened where possible and the edges of the road coloured buff to give the impression of a narrower road when there is little traffic. This is designed to reduce speed. After public consultation the bright yellow posts on build-outs are being replaced with wooden ones that have a yellow stripe - still highly visible to drivers but less intrusive. To emphasise that the road is within the boundary of a village, the Selborne sign will be incorporated into a "village gateway" on both the B3006 entrances to Selborne.

Spreading these ideas

If traffic does slow down through the village, and residents approve, then these ideas could spread throughout Hampshire. It is the whole county that we are concerned about.

HCC's Landscape Planning and Heritage Group organised a conference at the Guildhall, Winchester entitled "People, Places and Hampshire Highways". Two key-note speakers were Ben Hamilton-Baillie and Professor John Adams from University College London both of whom are recognised authorities on the relationship between the environment, transport and risk. The third key-note speaker was Phil Jones, a Transport Planning Consultant who is currently working on a guide to improve the design and adoption of residential streets and lightly trafficked areas. The opening address was by Councillor Ken Thornber who kindly acknowledged CPRE's contribution in setting the County Council along this path.

We look forward to continuing to work with Hampshire CC, developing these ideas to preserve the distinctiveness and sense of place of Hampshire's countryside whilst improving the safety of rural roads and villages for all users.

If you would like to conduct a clutter survey in your area then please let us know, we could then use your data for future action.

May 2007