Letter: How Can We Trust a Council That Makes Such Simple Errors

Published on: 4 Nov, 2023
Updated on: 4 Nov, 2023

From: Terry Newman

Chair of the London Road Action Group

How much confidence should the public have in what Surrey County Council says and proposes to do in connection with the London Road Active Travel Scheme.

This morning the following revised statement has appeared on their survey website: “We have added an addendum to the previously published modelling report which examines the right turn from London Road into York Road junction.”

Sure enough there it is further down the page. But when you try to see what it says, the link to both the original document and the amendment fail to react.

It beggars belief that a supposed professional organisation cannot conduct sufficient pre-release testing to ensure that simple errors like this do not occur. Is this what we are to expect for the whole project?”

Responses to Letter: How Can We Trust a Council That Makes Such Simple Errors

Don White Reply

November 5, 2023 at 10:40 am

No one is their right mind trusts the councils. You only have to look at the place to see what abject folly that would be.
Mark Percival Reply

November 5, 2023 at 12:45 pm

Does a dead link on a website really need a letter to the local paper? Perhaps email the team – who Mr Newman seems to correspond with daily to air his moans and complaints – and they’ll fix it.

I await a letter from LRAG Neils Laub with a long list of trivial concerns on the issue.
- jim allen Reply
  
  November 5, 2023 at 4:42 pm
  
  I wonder if Mr Percival has read the latest ‘trivia’ document ammendment to traffic modeling identified in summary to quote:
  
  “The scheme changes to the A3100 including Reduced speed limits, Reduced carriageway widths, leading to reduced capacity”
  
  On a road already exceeding design capacity, and of course that little paragraph at the bottom of the letters of 4th and 29th September sent alledgedly to 6000 homes which stated:
  
  “In addition, we are no longer proposing to narrow the width of the road to six metres, instead the road will remain the same width as it is currently.
  
  Both are Surrey documents from the same department, both can’t be true!
- Niels Laub Reply
  
  November 9, 2023 at 10:01 am
  
  In response to Mark Percival, here I am with another “long list of trivial concerns”.
  
  By the way, these are my personal concerns and have nothing to do with the LRAG [London Road Action Group] who pride themselves on being strictly impartial.
  
  One of the things that get right up my nose is Surrey County Council saying that they want to spend all our tax-payers’ money on making it safer for cyclists.
  
  Consider this. The only other Dutch style roundabout in the UK is in Cambridge and this has seen a significant increase in accidents involving cyclists since it was opened. There have been ten collisions since it was opened, three of them serious, compared to only six minor incidents between 2017-2019 (please check this out on the internet).
  
  I also question the cost benefit of Surrey County Council spending £28,000 on each additional daily cycle journey (according to their own figures).
  - Mark Percival Reply
    
    November 9, 2023 at 9:49 pm
    
    Neils Laub is the active member of LRAG and has attended numerous stakeholder meetings of SCC and other parties being consulted to shape the consultation.
    
    His views align precisely with those of LRAG as they are one and the same.
    
    No one is fooled for a moment that LRAG is impartial.
    - Niels Laub Reply
      
      November 11, 2023 at 9:01 am
      
      Perhaps Mark Percival can remind me which Stakeholder meetings I am supposed to have attended?
      
      I was indeed a member of the LRAG but our views have changed and are no longer the same. I have parted company with the LRAG precisely because LRAG are determined to remain impartial whereas I am firmly of the opinion that SCC’s proposals for the London Road are misguided and will simply add to traffic congestion and therefore increase air pollution in the area.
      
      SCC’s own Traffic Modelling Report concedes this and even admits that traffic will be diverted onto adjoining residential streets like Nightingale Road and Tormead which cannot be a good thing.
      
      Readers should check out the accident rates for the new Dutch style roundabout in Cambridge. I don’t call that making it safer for cyclists.
      - Mark Percival
        
        November 12, 2023 at 9:20 pm
        
        The minutes of the SCC stakeholder meeting note Niels Laub attended as the LRAG representative on the of September 6 2023. The meeting minutes are published by SCC.
        
        LRAG’s own structure notes state Niels Laub is responsible for “safe scheme design”.
        
        If I am mistaken I apologise, but it appears to be of public record that Mr Laub represents LRAG.
        
        It is disappointing he continues to provide misleading information regarding accident rates and faux concern for pedestrians and cyclists.