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1.        ORIGIN OF REPORT

1.1   Councillor Shellina Prendergast has requested an update on the progress of this S106 funded scheme.

2.        PURPOSE OF REPORT AND EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

2.1      This report provides an executive summary of Kent County Council’s progress on implementing the proposals to reduce the speed limit, through the main part of Harrietsham, from 40 miles per hour (mph) to 30mph on the A20, construct new pedestrian refuge islands, upgrade the pelican crossing point to a toucan crossing point and widen the footway along the A20 through Harrietsham to provide a shared footway/cycleway.

3.        INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

3.1     In the adopted Maidstone Borough Local Plan (October 2017), Harrietsham is designated as a rural service centre capable of accommodating growth. A total of approximately 242 new homes are due to be delivered across three allocated sites over the plan period to 2031.  The local plan can be viewed at: www.maidstone.gov.uk/residents/planning/local-plan

3.2     The Local Plan requires that the new housing developments are supported by improvements to transport infrastructure.  These include modifications to the A20 Ashford Road corridor in order to facilitate safe and convenient pedestrian movement between the new housing and existing village facilities.

3.3     KCC will be designing and delivering the improvements using up to £926,660 of developer funding secured via planning obligations.

4.       PROGRESS TO DATE

4.1     The project has been split into 2 phases as not all of the S106 developer contributions have been received.  To date £755,160 has been collected leaving £171,500 to collect from Bellway Homes.  Bellway Homes have stated they could provide the S106 funding earlier than their agreement states if the usual indexation ‘fee’ is waived.  This fee was calculated at £12,209 in June 2019.  KCC is to request early payment to allow Phase 2 to be progressed without further delay and a contribution of £55,000 from KCC’s Local Transport Plan fund will allow all of phase 1 and 2 to be completed.

Phase 1

4.2     Phase 1 is now substantially complete.  This phase consisted of narrowing of the carriageway, lowering the speed limit from 40mph to 30mph, the provision of new sections of footway and pedestrian crossing facilities and providing a shared footway/cycleway.

4.3     There are a few outstanding issues to resolve following substantial completion and due to the delay between completing phase 1 and starting phase 2.

There has been a request by Shellina Prendergast to:

·         install temporary 30mph posts and signs in the locations where the street lighting has not been extended (Phase 2).

·         Progress post-completion speed survey loops to understand average speeds.

·         Remove the recently installed 30mph gateway buildouts as there is evidence of them being hit by drivers.  A recent visit by a road safety auditor to investigate these 2 locations suggested that the buildouts should be replaced with a centre island similar to the other islands recently installed. Due to the safety critical nature of this works this has now been done.

·         Alter the centre white lining by the islands to highlight the edge of the centre islands.

·         Additional clearance, top soiling and seeding to areas where stones remain in the grass verges.

These works will be programmed in the coming weeks.

Phase 2

4.4     Phase 2 consists of extending the street lighting to cover the full extent of the new 30mph limit and micro surfacing the areas where the existing white lining has been blacked out.  The design work is underway for the street lighting alterations and investigations are taking place to locate the electrical feeds required for this.

4.5     It was hoped that the micro surfacing could take place in October but due to Southern Gas Network’s requirements to upgrade their service near the nursery site, the decision has been taken to delay this until SGN have completed their work.  The timing of the micro surfacing is also weather dependant and from 1 November there is an embargo on any work taking place on this road until further notice due to potential Brexit issues. Potential methods include centre line removal, bus buildouts, on-street parking bay modifications and gateway features.  In addition to being lower in cost, such measures are more psychological in nature and therefore encourage a reduction in vehicle speed through changing driver’s perception of the road environment.

5.        RECOMMENDATION

5.1     That the actions taken by KCC to progress to Phase 2 of the A20 Harrietsham Highway Improvements scheme be noted.