Please make crossings of Badger Farm Road with Oliver's Battery Road South/North and T-junction with the Ridgeway safe and accessible for all types of traffic especially pedestrians (with pushchairs), cyclists and mobility scooters.
Why is this important?
In the late 1970's Oliver's Battery community was divided by Badger Farm Road (now the A3090). A poorly designed underpass was built to connect the North and South of Oliver's Battery Road underneath Badger Farm Road. It makes it impossible for people in wheel chairs or mobility scooters to cross this junction as there are only steps to come up the southern end and no slope. It is very hard to use for young families with babies or toddlers in pushchairs or cyclists who for instance want to cycle to work to Winchester of from Winchester to IBM in Hursley . It forces them to risk crossing the road with fast traffic.
This junction as well as the T-junction with the Ridgeway that lies in a bend are both very difficult and dangerous to cross even for cars that often build up long queues trying to to leave Oliver's Battery or Badger Farm.
Serious road traffic accidents have become the norm in recent years. It is only a matter of time until someone might lose their life.
With the lack of public transport facilities in Oliver's Battery its residents are isolated and makes them car dependent and many elderly people rely on the goodwill of their neighbours to drive them around.
The best option with great benefits not only for the local communities but for much of Winchester would be to:
- Fill up the underpass to create more space for a safe junction
- Build a traffic light junction with priority for cyclists and public transport
- Create a bus lane from the Sainsbury’s to the Pitt roundabout (westwards)
- Build a cycle lane (or another bus lane) on the eastbound side of Badger Farm Road
- Enable easy cycle routes: a) from Hursley via Oliver's Battery towards King's school, b) Along Badgers Farm Road to Sainsbury's, and c) towards Ridgeway/ St Cross and connecting Oliver's Battery with the new planned Leisure Centre at Bar End
Benefits:
- Safety for all types of traffic
- End discrimination against people with restricted mobility
- Promote active types of transport (Walking and Cycling)
- Promote public transport by shortening travel times for buses during peak times (Who would like to get stuck in the car if you can get into to town faster in the bus?)
- Save money that is wasted by keeping buses in congested road traffic
Residents in Oliver's Battery and Badger farm are very concerned about these junctions and several attempts by the Parish council and local councillors to improve the situation over many years have been ignored. Some progress has been made only recently.
Nobody can understand that even an attempt to reduce the speed limit on Badger Farm Road from 40 to 30 mph (that would cost almost nothing) was refused: The Police would not support it as they think that it will not be complied with by drivers. The main criteria the Police uses is that the existing mean speeds must be close to the proposed lower limit (mean speeds between the Sainsbury’s and Pitt roundabouts were recorded as between 34 and 36 mph, which was not considered to be close enough to 30 mph).
People living here are very disappointed about the slow progress.
Therefore, these urgently required modifications of Badger Farm Road must be part of the new the Winchester Movement Strategy.