Sunbury Active Travel plan scrapped

No doubt about what local residents thought

Following an incredible response from residents, Surrey County Council has scrapped its plans to close a number of roads in the Lower Sunbury Area as part of its Active Travel plans. The Liberal Democrats were not responsible for these initial plans, but have been glad that despite no consultation, residents have got their voice heard.

The Sunbury Lib Dem team would like to thank the 867 people who completed the survey. Whilst not needed to convince the County Council to change these plans, we are still happy to share the key headline results from them:

66% believe that closing roads would not decrease traffic in Lower Sunbury

82% believed blocking these roads was a very bad way of reducing traffic in Lower Sunbury.

Perhaps most disappointingly, 88% and 89% of respondents said they would not increase their walking and either would not cycle more or don't cycle. This has to be our local challenge as we must all work together to relieve the reliance on personal transport through cars.

A large number of people discussed public transport and the importance of this in Sunbury's future. We strongly support the calls to further improve the provision in our area, but was not able to be used through this Government Grant. Similarly the road maintenance cannot be facilitated through this grant, but we do encourage residents to be proactive in reporting these.

We have reiterated our support for a pedestrian bridge in the previous discussions with Surrey to join Sunbury and the towpath in Walton and if this fund can be used to support that, we would support. However, should this not be possible, we will be exploring what we can do to improve our walking and cycling routes locally as we must strive to do better to make the area better.

In the free-form section of the survey, numerous responses indicated concerns in relation to pollution and access to schools and local facilities and shops. We have to make changes that support the people in doing these journeys by methods other than cars.

We intend to still meet with Cllr Evans and Surrey County Council amongst other stakeholders next week to try and find worthwhile investments in our area that will make a positive impact for those seeking to travel round Sunbury through sustainable, active means.

We once again thank all those who got in touch and will continue to process the information received and welcome any positive suggestions or other issues that residents wish to raise.