Crookes councillor Ruth Milsom explains ward councillors' views on the controversial Crookes and Walkley Active Travel Zone in Sheffield, with a decision on the future of the scheme due in September
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00:00 I'm just with Ruth Milsom, the Councillor for Crookes. Ruth, could you tell me please
00:06 what Labour's recommendations are going to be for the Crookes Active Travel Zone?
00:12 Yeah, sure David. I've been discussing this obviously a lot with my colleague Councillor
00:18 Mina Hishparek, also one of the Crookes Councillors here for Labour, and we've reached a position that
00:24 we feel quite confident in, knowing that we've been listening to residents and community groups
00:30 and organisations throughout Crookes, all the way through the trial period of this active
00:35 neighbourhood. We've listened and taken stock of all the comments that we've been aware of
00:41 and the recommendations we're going to make to the Transport Committee on the 20th of September
00:46 reflect all of that outcome of the consultation period.
00:51 What things are you looking at recommending? What do you want to keep? What do you want to remove?
00:56 Yeah, lots of measures obviously have gone in during the trial. We've had
01:00 modal filters in the form of planters on the roads that have changed the direction of
01:04 vehicles whilst allowing cycles through. We're recommending that most of those actually are not
01:14 retained as part of the scheme, but two that we feel have worked pretty well. We're recommending
01:19 to keep in the Leamington Road area of Crookes and Newant Lane where a very tiny narrow road
01:27 has been closed to traffic and that's not caused any issues. And so in terms of that sort of
01:34 hardware change on the roads that changes where vehicles can drive, not too much we're recommending
01:41 to be retained because we feel there hasn't been enough of a shift in behaviour that's been
01:46 beneficial to walking and cycling and we'd like to see the focus on some of the measures that have
01:51 been more beneficial. In terms of retaining things that aren't just planters, we're looking at the
01:59 two pedestrian crossings that we feel have been a real success. There's one on Crookes, there's one
02:03 on Crookes Mall Road and we feel those have really facilitated people on their walking routes
02:08 and hopefully encouraged more people to feel confident walking. And we'd actually also like
02:13 to see more done in the way of pedestrian crossings as well as we know that's really beneficial
02:18 to active travel. There's a school street as well that we've had implemented for Westway School
02:24 in the heart of Crookes and that's been not without its problems in implementing as these
02:31 things are always pretty complicated when you're changing the pattern of traffic movement.
02:35 But we've modified it as we've gone through the trial and we feel we've reached a point where it's
02:39 working okay and working with the school we'd like to see that continue and support them in
02:45 making it work even better.