Earlier this year I published an article on this site about residents reporting incidents of vehicles exceeding the speed limit when coming into built-up residential areas along the A1086 at both Blackhall Rocks and Blackhall Colliery (please see post dated Wednesday 5 August 2020 for background details).
The results from speed surveys carried out at Blackhall Rocks earlier in the year by Durham police proved inconclusive, so in seeking to address the concerns of residents I met on site with the parish clerk and the senior traffic asset officer from county hall to consider installing speed visors at both approach points to the village along the A1086 Coast Road.
Following last week’s site meeting a recommendation has been made to install a speed visor near to the mid-point on the western side of Broad Road, Blackhall Rocks and also to install a second speed visor next to the Methodist chapel on Middle Street in Blackhall Colliery. Located at these places speed visors would comply with regulatory guidelines on positioning and would also be immediately visible to vehicles at both the northern and southern approaches to the village. However this is simply a recommendation at this stage and will be subject to funding arrangements and the support of residents at both recommended locations.
In addition, for some time I’ve been working alongside the parish clerk and parish council members from Castle Eden who are seeking to install a speed visor on the B1281 between the Memorial junction and The Village at Castle Eden. Funding for this scheme has been secured by the parish council and both county councillors and a site meeting will take place with highways officers next week to agree a suitable location for the visor.
Finally, following concerns expressed by residents at Crimdon I am continuing to liaise with highways officers to find a suitable way to deal with reported incidents of speeding vehicles on the A1086 Coast Road. Again, initial conclusions from a vehicle monitoring exercise carried out by the council and Durham police proved inconclusive and I’m told by the police traffic management officer and highways traffic asset engineers that physical speed restrictions or speed limit reductions are deemed unsuitable for a stretch of road of this nature. I will publish further details in due course.
I’ll update on progress with the speed visor schemes as soon as there are further developments.
