'Dangerous' traffic concerns raised by Alnwick residents' group

Jane Mann, representing some 90 householders on Prudhoe Street, Lisburn Street and surrounding side streets, raised the matter at an Alnwick Town Council meeting.

She explained: “Over the last few years there have been a series of traffic problems: more traffic, faster traffic and heavier traffic. Now we feel the point has come where there is dangerous traffic.

"Some has been generated by house-building and we know there are a lot of tourists but we also query why our streets are now being signposted so traffic is directed along our streets. I have been very aware of that recently.

"Those existing traffic problems also create hazards that go along the whole of that road. There are 15 separate junctions or points of access and you’ve got parked cars, camper vans, heavy goods vehicles and a primary school.

"People living in our streets feel the walls of their houses vibrating when HGVs go by.

"These problems are all serious and come before the opening of a new care home at the bottom of Lisburn Terrace with almost 100 residents. They’re also going to build on the Duke’s Middle School site. If it’s not working now, what will it be like then?

"We want our councillors and officers to know how local people are feeling. We are realistic and know we cannot turn the clock back but surely there are ways and means of making these streets safer?

"We feel it is a traffic free for all at the moment and worry that something awful will happen one day soon.”

The issue was also discussed at a recent meeting of the Alnwick Forum.

Cllr Martin Swinbank, planning committee chairman, said: “These are not the only traffic concerns in the town so the thinking is that we need a larger scale survey of what is going on with traffic and some professional input to see how it could be improved. Obviously changing something in one place effects it somewhere else.”

The residents’ group has been asked to put some suggestions together for a working group meeting on September 3.

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