Wednesday, November 12, 2008

The Toll House wall 3

The plans have finally been made available online and show the existing wall structure as remaining; an attempt to justify this has been made in the supporting documentation thusly:

Rather than use the adjacent controlled crossing, some pedestrians used this frontage strip to then cross the road near to the bridge. The applicant considered that this created a possible hazard and on this basis constructed the low wall.
Note that it was the "applicant" who decided this not the council, and not the Highways Authority. Also note that the gap between the bridge wall and the frontage wall remains and that with the new 90° wall anyone using it is in a dead-end and must walk with their back to traffic along the edge of the road.

To put it another way when the front wall collapsed blocking the frontage people would still cross prior to the controlled crossing and walk along the wall in the road so putting a wall here is unlikely to change that behaviour, but simply removes the option of continuing safely.

Now some may find it odd that I'm advocating a position for people not to use a crossing, I'm not, however at times this road is visibly clear or vehicles are queued at the controlled crossing and as such I have no problem with people crossing the road in a careful manner. This wall simply forces those who do so at this point to walk in the road between wall and vehicles. My main point however is the gap between the bridge and Bridge Cottage that leads down to the river. Anyone coming up this, albeit steep non-paved route is now forced onto the road at the top through the gap.

An interesting point in the supporting documentation is that the frontage "formally contained a lean-to structure for the full building width" when was that exactly? I remember walking home from High School and using the frontage and that was at least 20 years ago.

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