The Parish Council Traffic Group have a meeting with WSCC on 29^th July ( next Friday) to run through some matters WSCC have raised on the design.

The first issue is the road surfacing (using a different coloured road surface to raise driver safety awareness) for the centre crossroads. Although the proposed material has been applied in other parts of the county, and recently to the north of Balcombe in a couple of locations, WSCC are presently unwilling to take on maintenance of this in our village centre. We will endeavour to persuade them otherwise.  

Secondly the WSCC highways team highlighted some issues over lighting levels in the centre of the village. We have negotiated a reduced standard such that we don’t have to increase light levels throughout, which would be both expensive and we think could cause a nuisance, but there is one location at the zebra crossing which needs better lighting. We have recently commissioned the WSCC lighting contractor Enerveo to produce a lighting plan for the upgrade of the street lights around the Zebra Crossing. We are waiting for this work to be done.

The Road Traffic Order for the scheme has been prepared by our consultants and is ready to submit but, pending resolution of the 2 issues above, we have that on hold for the moment.

Concerns have been raised by residents on the Haywards Heath Road about the priority give way feature designed to slow northbound traffic approaching the junction outside Threads. This part of the scheme will therefore be progressed using an Experimental Traffic Regulation Order which means that, if it is unacceptable in practice, it can be easily reversed.

To fund the work we rely on receipt of S106 money from the two housing developments at Barn Field and beside the Rectory.  As this will not come forward at the same time, the project may have to be carried out in two sections, so we would start part of the project using S106 funding now available from the development at Barnfield.

Timescales are difficult to assess as the Parish Council is dependent on other parties eg WSCC, Enerveo, and the bringing forward of the Rectory Woods development, however once the design issues are resolved we should be in a position to submit the Road Traffic Order and move forward.