Regular readers of these pages will be aware of a long-running issue regarding a few residents driving along a public footpath to access their properties in Park Avenue, Blackhall Colliery. Background details can be found in this post dated Friday 29 April 2022: https://robcrute-blackhall.blogspot.com/2022/04/update-on-councils-proposal-to-restrict.html
I'm in no doubt that this has been a contentious issue from beginning to end - with some residents in Park Avenue reporting a risk of accidents from vehicles driving along the footpath, and other residents seemingly happy to leave things as they are. For my part I've played with a straight bat throughout the whole process by meeting with and listening to residents on both sides of the argument whenever I've been asked and then raising their concerns with the authorities. Links to previous articles about this matter can be found in the link above.
However, whatever your opinion might be, it's obvious that the authorities have had to do something in response to residents' concerns. By way of an example, there's a similar issue nearby on Middle Street where residents have raised concerns about vehicles driving onto the public footpath to park outside the shops. It's acknowledged that there have been no accidents here to date - but there's no guarantee there won't be an accident at some point in the future if nothing is done to address those concerns.
Everyone I've spoken to about the risk of accidents on Middle Street agrees that the authorities simply cannot wait until someone is killed or injured before they do something to eliminate the risk. The authorities would argue that precisely the same principle applies to the current situation on Park Avenue. A lot of people have warned it’s ‘an accident waiting to happen’ so doing nothing simply isn’t an option.
By way of an update, residents in Park Avenue were contacted again this week to confirm that lockable, drop-down bollards are to be installed later this week at both ends of the footpath to restrict access to vehicles.
When I asked for the rationale behind the council's decision I was told by officers in the highways department that lockable, drop-down bollards were being installed as a safety measure and as a last resort after some residents continued to drive along the footpath to access their properties despite repeated requests to desist.
In addition, highways officers made it clear that if those residents had complied with requests to stop driving on the footpath the bollards wouldn’t have been necessary. As it happens, some people are driving vehicles on a public footpath, the authorities have been made aware of the risk so they have a public duty and a legal obligation to deal with it.
Following additional concerns expressed by residents about access to emergency vehicles the highways assets department has confirmed that the emergency services have been consulted and offered no objections to the council’s proposals. This had been previously confirmed in an article I published on this site back in June last year: https://robcrute-blackhall.blogspot.com/2021/06/update-on-residents-calls-for.html
I’ve published the highways officer’s response in full below:
The emergency services were consulted and there were no objections to the proposal. The police did inform that the presence of motor vehicles using the footpath was illegal and should an incident occur where someone is injured as a result of vehicles using this footpath then a prosecution could follow.
The bollards proposed to be installed are drop-down and lockable. I have issued a number of letters to residents asking them not to use the footpath to access driveways and I have been challenged each time regarding the status of the path. It is a pavement for use by pedestrians and is not designed for use by vehicles. As I understand it, there are two residents who have constructed driveways to the front of their properties and are using the footpath for access. If we had full compliance with my request to cease driving along the footpath we wouldn’t need to install the bollards. The rationale for installing the bollards is pedestrian safety after we received a number of complaints. Legally we cannot condone residents driving significant distances over a public footpath to access driveways.
With regard to emergency access, the average widths of an ambulance and a fire appliance is 2.2-2.4m meaning that there is less than 900mm clearance at the side of the vehicle if they were to use the footpath. The emergency services would probably access the public road to the rear of the properties in an emergency and maybe not the footpath. In addition a fire appliance weighs approximately 12 tonnes so there is a possibility that it could cause footpath damage given the pavement construction is not designed for vehicles. Also the width of the footpath is reduced in the middle of Park Avenue where there is a lighting column meaning that the access is further restricted
The recent communication I have received after our letter drop to all residents informing of the bollard scheme, suggests that a number of residents have objected. At present I have two objections on file.
Any comments and queries about this issue should be directed to the Senior Asset Management Engineer at: andrew.blanckley@durham.gov.uk or 03000 268103.
