Grigg’s Quay, Lelant – LATEST

I’ve just spoken to a nice man at Cornwall Council to find out what’s going on with the one-way system. But first, here’s a reminder of the situation from my perspective since last Summer:

22nd September 2016 – Official news from CC that it’s been agreed to reverse the one-way system at Grigg’s Quay (https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/council-news-room/media-releases/news-from-2016/news-from-september-2016/griggs-quay-lelant/)

4th January 2017 – After hearing nothing for months, I emailed Cormac and had a reply from the Project manager saying “There will be a formal consultation starting on 9th February lasting a minimum of 21 days (statutory). If this is successful, the aim is to have the new layout in place before this summer.”

3rd March 2017 – As another two months went past, I emailed for a follow up and Cormac Project manager says “There is currently no plan to consult on the proposals, but we are aiming to construct before the end of May. A press release will be sent out in due course when the scheme is finalised.”

29th March 2017 – Official News from CC that the road up Nut Lane will be officially widened and that the one-way system at Grigg’s Quay will be ‘monitored’. (https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/council-and-democracy/council-news-room/media-releases/news-from-2017/news-from-march-2017/highway-works-at-a3074-nut-lane-lelant/)

30th March 2017 – I emailed Cormac for an explanation to the CC News but never got any response.

So, come June, and still hearing nothing, I sent another email and was invited to today’s phonecall chat.

What seems to have happened, but not been reported officially to us public, is that CC had scheduled roadworks for 8th may to reverse the one-way but on the 5th May they received a letter from Highways England that strongly objected to the changes, citing issues with traffic flow and the A30, and a few other things I don’t recall but mentioning safety. Based on this, CC dropped the scheduled roadworks. I should add that CC had been in discussions with Highways in the months before but I’m still unsure why it ended with a last minute change of plan when you’d think they’d had an idea of the objection before that date.

Since then, what’s been happening? Well, unsure. They continue to monitor the route, and despite two bank holidays, they seem to be very pleased with the performance of the changes made to Nut Lane. I got the impression they were not expecting anything worse this summer in terms of traffic queuing. He accepted there would be queuing (there always is all over the shop in summer) but the success of the Nut Lane widening will be based on if the queuing this summer is worse or no better than last summer.

So, I suggested to the gentleman that must mean nothing will happen this year to Nut Lane/Grigg’s Quay? Not necessarily. There’s a meeting of all interested parties later this month (including Highways) to discuss the situation. Work could still occur but it would have to be overnight work over the summer if anything did happen. I was invited to contact him again after this meeting for an update which I’ll do.

I was also told something I’d heard before but I’ll say it again anyway, but CC will be launching a study of that area, including the St Erth Roundabout and A30, looking future growth/changes and what they can do to improve things going forward. I couldn’t get any date on when that might start or end.

I did ask about traffic modelling and how much was done before the one-way change last year. Quite openly I was told that it was either very little or none. He admits that in hindsight they failed to do proper modelling to take into account all the factors of that stretch of road, purely thinking more about the cycle improvements than the traffic flow. Ignoring the traffic issues though, and businesses, from a cycle/walk perspective, the impression is the scheme was a success. I would tend to agree on that factor alone.

So, here we are. I’ll post again when I find out result of upcoming meeting, if no one else beats me to it via https://m.facebook.com/groups/1427665177484300?view=permalink&id=1892963...