Greg Devine of Surrey County Council has kindly responded to one of our queries regarding the Brookwood Farm development. As WBC consistently ignore or refuse our requests for information, in this case specifically the report SCC submitted on the development, we asked him to address our main concerns on an overall approach to traffic figures and footpaths, he responded-

Dear Mr Stubbs,

Thanks for your message. In reply to your questions about the housing development at Brookwood Farm, I can update you about the county council’s transport position for Cala Homes’ planning application.

Below I have repeated an extract from a recent message I sent, summarising the outstanding transport problems on Cala’s application. Underneath is a fuller explanation to reply to your specific points:

“Overall Summary

• Unfortunately I have yet to receive full information about:

– upgrading footpath 13, or an equivalent route through the new country park, – a pedestrian link from the northern third of the site to the Bagshot Road bus stops near the Woking / Surrey Heath borough boundary, and – future maintenance arrangements for the new A322 bus shelter.

• Unfortunately there is a loose-end about the development traffic generation and the current figures slightly underestimate the development traffic generation.
• Unfortunately after screening the Linsig junction modelling output tables, there are unresolved issues about:

– the affects on pedestrians / cyclists crossing the A322, associated with the proposed increase in signal timing at the (site)/A322/Redding Way and the A324/A322/(Cemetery Pales) junctions, and – the benefits of linking the (site)/A322/Redding Way junction with the A324/A322/(Cemetery Pales) junction, as set out in the application TA are not obviously demonstrated by the signal junction micro-simulation results so far received. I will commission further reviews by the county council’s intelligent transport service about these matters, to further decide about their acceptability. ….”

Development vehicle trip rate
To recap, we thought Cala’s was too low and recommended they use a trip rate based on the locally sourced traffic survey information. Cala used this local trip rate, but unfortunately applied an additional reduction for the proposed 25 affordable elderly person’s homes. Since the local trip rate already includes movement from the Sunnyside and Rapsley Lane affordable elderly person’s homes, Cala’s revised trip rate reduction is questionable and we have reported back that they still slightly under-estimate the development trip rate. In turn this will have the effect of very slightly

Development traffic impact / A322 junction modelling
To recap we had reservations about Cala’s estimated traffic impacts on the A322/Redding Way and A322/A324/Cemetery Pales traffic light junctions. Their traffic modelling results showed a lot of additional traffic congestion, which did not well reflect their statements about the development traffic impact. Recently we received revised traffic modelling information and we have provided some immediate feedback, because the same problems seem to persist. I have engaged the county council’s intelligent transport systems service over Cala’s revised traffic modelling information, to get feedback from our traffic light specialists. I am also due to meet with Cala this week to discuss the remaining issues.

Development single access
Yes, the developer still proposes a single vehicular access point into the site via a new fourth arm onto the A322/Redding Way.

I hope that this answers your message and tells you about the current situation.
Regards
Greg Devine, Transport Development Planning