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Buckden Roundabout
July 2019
Buckden Parish Council
Buckden Parish Council News...
Round-about-Buckden Walk.
The Round-about-Buckden Village Walk was officially
opened on 9
th
June. There was an excellent turn out for
this event. Thank you to everyone who joined us on the
day and to those that worked so hard to make this hap-
pen. Leaflets about the walk are available at the village
hall.
Cycle and Foot Paths
A very well attended workshop was held on 21
st
May to
understand residents’ concerns and priorities. A funding
request has now been submitted to Huntingdonshire
District Council (HDC) for a variety of projects including,
more dropped kerbs, a path between the bus stop and
bus shelter, improvements to High Street parking and
the Grafham cycle route.
Planning and Roads
Apologies for the length of this section but as you will be
aware there are three large development proposals cur-
rently under discussion, all at critical points.
The Church Commissioners who are developing the Sil-
ver Street site have made a proposal to put traffic lights
on the A1 roundabout, to reduce the amount of queue-
ing traffic on the High Street and Perry Road. (The devel-
opers own data suggests that in the am peak, queues on
the High Street could reach 300+ cars).
Whilst at first sight this appears attractive, the rounda-
bout is unfortunately too small to accommodate any
traffic queueing to turn right from the A1, into the High
Street or into Perry Road. This results in the outside lane
of the A1 being blocked, causing delays and potential
collisions. If you would like to see diagrams of this pro-
posal, please contact the clerk.
In relation to Lucks Lane we have received notification
of significant road closures near the site in the second
half of the year. We are still awaiting revised plans to
mitigate the impact on residents. We are also in discus-
sion with HDC about developer plans to raise the level
of the land on the site to better manage drainage.
The County Council and High-
ways England are so far refusing
to make further changes to the
dangerous A1/Stirtloe Lane junc-
tion. They are instead proposing
a 40mph speed restriction on the A1, southbound from
the roundabout, for the duration of the development, to
protect construction traffic turning into/out of Stirtloe
Lane. The plan is to remove this restriction once the de-
velopment is complete. It would appear that resident
safety is of a lower priority and we continue to object.
The undergrowth, banks and some of the hedges have
recently been cut back during bird breeding/nesting sea-
son. This has been drawn to the attention of HDC by the
Protect Buckden’s Future group.
The HDC Local Plan has been approved. As anticipated
the Mill Road development proposal is not included in
this plan.
We have introduced a new Large-Scale Planning Com-
mittee to focus on these developments. The agenda for
the meetings will available in advance.
New Appointments
Clive Gillam and Allan Jones have
been appointed as Parish Councillors. We now have a
full complement of 15 Councillors.
Office opening hours
are: Mon, Wed and Thursday
10.30-2.00pm, Tuesday 2-4pm, Friday – closed.
Council Meetings
The next meeting of the Council will be held at 7.30pm
on Tuesday 9
th
July. The meeting will include a 15 mi-
nute open form. If you want to speak at the meeting,
please let us know what you want to say, by writing to
the Parish Clerk, by 2
nd
July. You will get a three-minute
slot.
If required, the Council Planning Committee will meet
on Tuesday 25
th
June and Tuesday 11
th
July. Agendas for
these meetings are posted on the Parish notice boards
not later than the Saturday preceding the meeting.
All of the papers and reports for Council meetings are available on the Thursday before the meetings on the Council website
http://buckdenparishcouncil.org.uk. This provides the opportunity to see the agenda, reports of work carried out by the Coun-
cil as well as reports from our County and District Councillors.
Any questions or comments on this report should be addressed to the Parish Clerk at: Buckden Parish Council, Buckden Village
Hall, Burberry Road, Buckden, PE19 SUY Telephone 01480 819407 Email
clerk@buckdenparishcouncil.org.uk