Longwick approaching from the north
| In Spring 2020 Transport Initiatives was commissioned by Longwick-cum-Ilmer Parish Council to produce a Transport Vision for the parish in conjunction with the local community. The vision had to mesh with their Neighbourhood Plan but also accommodate a major planned expansion of Princes Risborough. |
Narrow footways on Chestnut Way.
| The village is at the junction of the A4129 Princes Risborough to Thame road and the B4009 Lower Iknield Way. Traffic levels on roads through the village are in the order of 3250 to 5000 veh/day, footways are narrow and there is only one formal pedestrian crossing. |
Older people are more likely to respond and they prefer paper. Younger people prefer digital. Cgildren and teenagers are difficult to engage.
| We got the message about our project into every household and undertook an extensive covid-friendly multi-stage consultation using questionnaires, focus groups and exhibitions. The parish council were convinced that the residents wanted paper based surveys but we also ran electronic ones. The two methods elicited very different response rates. |
Where people would like to travel by bus. Older people want to catch the bus to Thame. Younger people want to walk or cycle into Princess Risborough. The ‘yoof’ want a late evening bus to Aylesbury.
| The key themes that residents highlighted were a small number of dangerous junctions, speeding and traffic volumes suppressing walking cycling and horse riding. Older people wanted to be able to travel to neighbouring towns by bus and younger people wanted active travel opportunities. |
Where people travel to now. Most trips are the short distance into Princes Risborough.
| Something that the consultation did not reveal but appeared in subsequent conversations was that a significant number of people feel trapped in the village by lack of travel opportunities. Interestingly for a rural settlement, most journeys outside the village were less than two miles long and thus could be made on foot or by bike if there were suitable facilities. Active travel could therefore facilitate a significant increase in travel opportunities if suitable provision was made. |
Proposals for a layby, additional footway and a zebra crossing at the shop. Would cause congestion and pollution apparently.
| Two splits emerged, firstly, many people felt that measures to ease problems in Longwick village would lead to increases in traffic in the surrounding lanes and vice versa, and, secondly, that some residents favoured measures to improve conditions for pedestrians and cyclists while others felt any attempts to do so would lead to congestion and pollution. |
Traffic in the centre of Longwick.
| Traditionally studies of this nature consider projections for traffic growth. Both the DfT and Buckinghamshire Council expect substantial increases but we know that these are incompatible with mitigating the effects of climate change. We also know that what you provide determines what you get, thus our study tried to step away from the convention of following predictions and base its proposals more on what the residents would like to see. There is a tension between technical ‘professionalism’ and taking a morally sound approach. |
The A4129 between Longwick and Princes Risborough. The town extension would be behind the hedge on the left and would include a route to replace the narrow footway.
| While some residents might not have liked the idea of the Princes Risborough town extension encroaching on the village, the various measures proposed in the extension plans will make it much easier to provide for public transport and active travel, at least in the Princes Risborough direction. |
Proposal for the A4129 / B4009 ‘Sportsman Roundabout’ a site for multiple collisions. The residents were not happy with our more compact roundabout design to reduce collisons
| The key recommendations were: 1. Comprehensive speed limit reductions and measures to highlight boundaries of slower areas: 2. Reducing the dominance of Thame Road in Longwick village by narrowing the carriageway to widen the footways, introducing measures to reduce speeds and add additional crossings for pedestrians 3. Making proposals to make Chestnut Way less attractive to through traffic including measures to improve the junctions at Lower Icknield Way and the Red Lion 4. Proposing pedestrian and cycle links, particularly to Princes Risborough and the Phoenix Way 5. Proposing measures to calm traffic and improve safety in the hamlets. |
We had a Bishopstone in another project in Seaford as well
| And there’s more… One of the problems in Longwick is the lack of active travel routes radiating from the village. In Hilton we proposed paths using environmental grass margins of fields bordering the roads and some single lane shuttle working on a narrowed carriageway to get the path past pinch points and in Tal-y-bont on Usk we found that providing facilites for active travel both made better use of their village hall and help solve parking issues. (Posted 10/11/23, amended 30/04/24) |