This post forms part of a series designed to keep households informed of what is being proposed by the developers for the White House Farm site. This is the second of five. If you want to read them in order, you can read the first one here.
Traffic and Transport Issues: traffic impacts
Existing Traffic Issues: cars
As you will have seen from our first post in this series Phase 1 of the development (750 homes) proposes a single exit north out onto the Old Broyle Road. St Paul’s Road is already backed up to Sherborne Road as it is: 
Where will this extra traffic go when it hits the jam. Down Sherborne Road to the Westgate roundabout?
The Northgate gyratory is already struggling at peak hours:
and queues form already along Orchard Street to the Westgate Roundabout:
Westgate is already a rat run for people trying to get into the city and if you enter the roundabout from here:
you can jump ahead of the traffic coming in from Orchard Street. See above what a pounding the brick paving has taken from this over use already.
Existing Traffic Issues: bicycles
That’s where a lot of the cars may go. Let’s take a cycle ride down Westgate from the City end.
Here the road is so narrow that a car and a van can barely pass. How safe is this for a cyclist?
At the mouth of Mount Lane, the cyclist signpost for the SSR actually directs cyclists down this unsuitable narrow stretch of road into the traffic at the Westgate Roundabout:
Going the other way the current state of the brick paving is bad for safe cycling. Hopefully this surface will be repaired in October 2015.
On-road parking and the cycle bollards do contribute to a slowing down of the traffic along this stretch. The traffic separation is only occasional however:
and with parked cars on either side and the traffic backed up in the evening rush, this is no place for cyclists:
Remember how dark it gets in winter?
And then there’s the mini roundabout to negotiate at Sherborne Road:
taking your life into your hands:
without any priority for cyclists
so you can go straight on into the western end of Westgate and onto the cycle tracks to Fishbourne or Centurion Way. 
With thanks to Paul Wreyford for his permission to use the material he has so painstakingly researched for the Parklands Residents Association. Photos: Paul Wreyford.
Read Post 3 in this series here.
