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Residents of Great Yarmouth are divided over a scheme to introduce a cycle lane and double yellow lines on a street in the Norfolk seaside town.
Norfolk County Council is currently consulting on the proposals for Jellicoe Road, which runs due east from the beach towards Caister Road, and which has a primary school on it as well as being adjacent to the town’s racecourse, reports the Great Yarmouth Mercury.
The eastern part of the road, running from the roundabout by one of the entrances to the racecourse to the sea and divided by a central reservation already has double yellow lines on either side.
According to local Conservative councillor Paul Hammond, more residents are opposed to the proposals than are in favour of them.
“They should have given people more choices,” he told the newspaper. “We are happy for the weight restriction and cycle way but we do not want the yellow lines. A cycle way on the footpath would have been much better.”
But one resident said that she had got so fed up with people parking in front of her driveway that she had painted double yellow lines outside her house to deter people from doing so – although the council quickly painted over the makeshift markings.
Other people living on the street expressed concern however about whether the proposed restrictions might impact carers of local residents, as well as affecting households with more than one vehicle.
In a statement, a spokesperson from the council said: “Earlier last week we wrote to residents of Jellicoe Road and Fremantle Road as part of a preliminary consultation concerning the proposed installation of some small sections of double yellow line waiting restrictions on the western end of Jellicoe Road, in addition to waiting restrictions already in place and the proposed introduction of a new 7.5 ton weight limit on Fremantle Road to prevent unnecessary access of large vehicles not suited to this residential street.
“This exercise is to gather feedback from residents ahead of any statutory consultation on the changes required to traffic regulation orders currently in force in the local area.”
The council has extended the deadline for responses to the consultation to Friday 7 October.
The scheme is one of three for which Norfolk County Council successfully bid for £955,000 in funding from the Department for Transport, the others being in Gorleston and Norwich.
The cash comes from the government’s Active Travel Fund, initially launched by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and ex-Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps in 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
While they were keen to encourage active travel and reduced car use as part of their plans for the country’s recovery from the pandemic, the policy at times met strong resistance from local councils – and in many cases, ones controlled by the Tory party itself.
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