£7m improvement pot for Poole roads (From Bournemouth Echo)

£7m improvement pot for Poole roads

1:00pm Tuesday 22nd January 2013 in News By Diana Henderson

Ashley Road in Parkstone is one of the areas to be improved using the Local Sustainable Transport Fund

AFTER seeking residents’ views, Poole Council is starting a range of improvement works to roads, pavements and footpaths across the town.

Last summer Borough of Poole took part in the fifth annual National Highways and Transport public satisfaction survey, along with 74 other local authorities across the country.

The survey included two questions which asked residents to pick their three most important services and the three areas most in need of improvement.

Local residents felt that the condition of roads, pavements and footpaths; safety on roads and traffic and congestion levels mattered most.

Julian McLaughlin, head of transportation said: “A programme of transport improvement and maintenance schemes for Poole, totalling just under £7.4million for the period 2013 to 2015, has recently been approved by the portfolio holder which will help to address these important issues.

“Our initial focus will be on improvements along the Poole – Bournemouth – Christchurch corridor, using the recently awarded Local Sustainable Transport Fund. This includes the main roads of Ashley Road, Poole Road and the Civic Centre as well as some further investment planned in the town centre regeneration area. There will also be a range of other improvements right across the borough to support sustainable means of travel including walking, cycling and buses.”

A maintenance programme on roads and bridges is also to be undertaken, boosted by additional government funding recently announ-ced in the autumn statement specifically for highway maintenance.

Cllr Xena Dion, cabinet portfolio holder for transportation, said: “It is really important that we continue our investment in transport infrastructure if we are going to address both the increasing pressure on our network and what the people of Poole tell us is important to them.

“With limited space available this can mean there may be some difficult decisions ahead which may not be popular with everyone. We are all working really hard to get the balance right between all road users: motorists, cyclists, pedestrians – private users, commercial users and public service users.

“They all have a ‘right’ to use the roads but we are also working towards increasing sustainable transportation methods for the long term. Without this programme of improvements, traffic conditions would get very much worse.”