Councillor's Surgery

Today we were three, Sarah, Jane and I (Sylke) went to the St. Bartholomew Councillor's Surgery (first Thursday of every month, 7:30-8:30pm at Hyde Parish Hall). Jim Maynard was there to talk to us.

Again, there wasn't a lot to talk about, so here is the short summary:

Play areas

As you will have seen from the last News Roundup, one of our new goalposts has appeared and the old one was taken away. Councillor Maynard assured us that a second new one will be put up. Apparently the council officers aren't quite certain where to put the second one as the old one seemed so far away from the new one when they put it up and they want to find out from the community where the other one should go. Oh and there is also the manhole cover slightly in the way. Let's see how this progresses.

We mentioned again that we would also like some picnic benches in the park, near the playground but not on it.

As for the play area planned for Abbotts Walk nothing will happen before the houses are finished. According to Councillor Maynard a consultation is planned on what should go in the green area.

Road safety

We mentioned that Lynne is trying to get people to write in to HCC/Fiona Mather on the topic of a crossing for Worthy Road, and Sarah explained that it was getting harder and harder to navigate safely as a driver through Park Road due to the parked cars there. Councillor Maynard explained that while it might not seem safe with parked vehicles obstructing your view, at least people are going slower due to fact that it is hard to navigate. If the road had double yellow lines everywhere the empty path creates an illusion of safety for drivers and makes them drive faster. While this is true, we believe the situation needs to be watched as if it gets any worse, it would become really hard to get through. A similar observation was made for Hyde Street and Councillor Maynard said it would probably be a good thing to not allow parking in front of the traffic lights at North Walls.

Apparently at some point residents of those areas in Abbotts Barton with the new parking restrictions will be asked by the council how the new system is working out. As far as I'm concerned, it's working brilliantly - crossing the roads with children seems to be so much safer now that we can actually see the road as there are fewer cars blocking the view lines!

Take note, the next Councillor's Surgery will be on Thursday 9 January December 2014 (not on the first Thursday)!