BOURNE COMMENT

A personal view of issues
and events

by REX NEEDLE

CHANGING THE FACE OF BOURNE

Hope springs eternal in the human breast, wrote Alexander Pope, and so it is today when we remain optimistic of achieving the unattainable against all the odds as with the ongoing public consultation over the neighbourhood plan for Bourne with a bypass topping the list of things to have.

No one can possibly deny that we need one, a new stretch of carriageway to divert the A15 north-south trunk road away from the town centre which is choked daily with traffic that should not be allowed into a small market town such as ours.

But then, this has been the case ever since a by-pass was first mooted half a century ago and although everyone else around here has one, Spalding, Sleaford, Market Deeping and even Northborough, the likelihood of Bourne getting one is even more remote now than it was then. Yet the damaging effects of using North Street, our main shopping centre, as a major route for through traffic are witnessed every day because a continuous flow of vehicles of varying sizes thunders through at all hours just a few inches from pavements often filled with people such as pensioners, children and mums with toddlers in pushchairs, spewing out lethal petrol and diesel fumes and shaking the buildings on either side to their foundations.

A glance through the archives on the problems of traffic through Bourne does not instil confidence that anything will be done because an awareness of the coming situation was evident over 100 years ago when the motor car was just beginning to make an appearance on our roads. In 1909, the newly formed Lincolnshire Automobile Club supplied signs that were erected in Abbey Road warning about the dangers of the new vehicles while the notorious double bend in South Street, still an accident black spot, began to cause disquiet yet the following year local authorities turned down a proposal to purchase land at this point to enable the carriageway to be widened.

The intervening years are remembered because of the inactivity by successive county councils on this issue despite a warning as recently as 1993 after a 20-tonne lorry overturned and blocked the town centre for two hours on a Saturday morning. The emergency services stood by because of fears that leaking diesel fuel could be ignited by the electricity supply to the traffic lights which had been flattened by the impact, an accident that highlighted the increasing danger from heavy vehicles using the main roads through Bourne and renewed calls for a bypass. The late Peter Garner, then a town councillor, warned of the danger in an interview with the Lincolnshire Free Press (27th April 1993). "With all the shoppers about, we were lucky that no one was killed", he said. "We have got to get heavy traffic out of the town centre as a matter of urgency."

In the event, it was to be another twelve years before a south-west relief road was eventually opened, a 1.5 mile stretch of single carriageway from South Road to West Road built at a cost of £4 million by the developers as part of the planning gain for the Elsea Park estate. This has relieved the town centre of a great deal of traffic but there are still problems at busy periods or when goods vehicles are illegally parked with North Street at a standstill as both lanes are jammed with heavy vehicles and although there has been much talk of a new north-south by pass for the A15, there is little or no likelihood of it materialising.

In 1991, there was a distinct possibility that it would happen because Lincolnshire County Council announced that work was due to start on a Bourne by-pass in April 1994 with a completion date of October 1995 but that promise was short-lived because the project was axed when the government drastically pruned its road building programme.

Since then, the scheme has never even been considered and this was explained in some detail by John Kirkman, who was also a member of Lincolnshire County Council, when the town council met to debate the issue in 2004. He outlined the various suggestions that had been made in previous years but pointed out that the cost of a route to the east of the town was likely to be in the order of £7 million which was then too high and certainly would be in today’s economic climate. He added: “Realistically then, unless circumstances change, or external funding becomes available, a north-south bypass for Bourne is unlikely in the foreseeable future and I believe that we should be concentrating our efforts on things that might be or are achievable instead.”

In the absence of a north-south bypass, therefore, the town centre will continue to attract unacceptable levels of heavy vehicles that are allowed to reach speeds of 30 mph which is far too fast for narrow streets through a crowded shopping centre. A 20 mph restriction is already applied to some school entrances in the town and it would therefore seem a practical and necessary precaution and one that might be achievable for Bourne given a favourable review by the county council but even that would be a poor second to a bypass.

However, there is a glimmer of hope because the bypass as a much-needed development for Bourne was chosen during the consultation meeting last week (February 10th) when electors were given the chance to have their say on changes they wanted to see in the parish.

The survey is designed to seek the views of residents for a new Neighbourhood Plan under the terms of the Localism Act of 2011, thus allowing local people have their say in future planning decisions. This process began in Bourne with a survey last summer conducted through a form printed in the local trade magazine Discovering Bourne but the response was poor with only 78 returned out of a possible 6,000 although 25 of those who did reply indicated that they were prepared to form a group to move the initiative forward. The meeting was therefore called but there was no rush to attend and despite deputy town clerk Ian Sismey telling The Local newspaper (February 13th) that “it was a brilliant turnout” only 40 residents turned up out of a population in excess of 15,000 which hardly warrants such an ecstatic response.

Nevertheless, enthusiasm at the meeting was evident and apart from the bypass, their wish list also included improved youth facilities, the preservation of areas such as Bourne Wood, town centre facilities, community safety and the need for a more inclusive community, most of which have a reasonable manifestation in the town already and so it is the bypass that must be acknowledged as the most important issue for the people of Bourne.

What then can be done to further the cause? Another meeting over the neighbourhood plan is to be held in March and the town council is currently setting up an online forum which will stimulate debate on these and other issues. There are also other ways including seeking support from our two county representatives because they sit on the council which is also the highways authority that will be the catalyst if a new bypass is to come to fruition. Furthermore, if localism is to work as the government intended then our voice must be heard otherwise the entire consultation is a sham.

We have trod this path before and missed it by a whisker but time is not on our side. As each year passes the population increases and traffic flows intensify while the quality of life in our town centre is diminished. Debate will raise awareness of the benefits that Bourne will derive from a town centre free of pollution and danger from this continuing annoyance and a determined effort for a new bypass through this new town council initiative could well be our gift to future generations.

Note: This article was published by the Bourne web site on 21st February 2015