Letter: This Is My Vision for Guildford

Published on: 4 Aug, 2018
Updated on: 4 Aug, 2018

From Bibhas Neogi

In response to: New Thinking Required For Guildford’s Town Centre

I totally agree with Brian Creese when he says “We need an integrated public transport to North Street/High Street, affordable, efficient, welcoming buses.”

From what I’ve gleaned from various comments made by councillors, the bus station will not be replaced. Councils are planning to create on-street bus bays in North Street, Leapale Road/Leapale Lane areas.

Many readers here have expressed their preference for a replacement bus station close to the railway station. However, that is not likely to happen as Solum’s redevelopment plan does not cater for it.

Guildford Vision Group has proposed putting buses on bus bays in Onslow Street when all traffic is routed away from the gyratory on to the west side of the tracks and then rejoins the route at York Road roundabout. I believe there are practical difficulties in achieving this.

Ideally, all routes should connect the railway station and the core of the town centre. I have proposed a mini-hub of about four or five bus stops integrated with the Friary extension and incorporating a waiting area and public facilities and a bus station either in Bedford Road car park site or Mary Road car park site.

Bus routes could be split to go via the railway station and then head for the bus station while the other half connects the mini-hub and then goes to the bus station. Outgoing buses similarly connect the mini-hub and go north or east and the other half connects the bus stops located where the current taxi stand is and then go either east, south or west

In the above proposal, Millbrook and Onslow Street traffic is put in a tunnel-like structure and the east-west traffic is put on a new route over the tracks connecting Woodbridge Road and Guildford Park Road.

A new bridge over river Wey connects Walnut Tree Close with Mary Road.

All the above produce a holistic solution to Guildford’s traffic, bus routes and bus station relocation issues and creates a pedestrian-friendly town centre.

In the longer term, a tunnel connecting the A281 and the A25 (Parkway) together with a link to the A3100 would take through traffic to and from the A3.

This is my vision for Guildford together with sensible expansion of retail bearing in mind the continued increase of online shopping and revisiting the housing and retail mix in North Street redevelopment.

Responses to Letter: This Is My Vision for Guildford

RWL Davies Reply

August 4, 2018 at 6:11 pm

I agree with the all of the above with the caveat that only big name “destination” stores, akin to Selfridges, Fortnum and Mason and Harrods can persist in the town centre. The rest should be niche outlets.

In the longer term, bridge or tunnel traffic management is required; multi-modal transport is at least 50 years off, probably more.

Guildford has one of the best high streets in western Europe; it needs to be used properly, alongside North Street.

Meanwhile, the council is in the mode of the dogs who “bark while the caravan moves on”. It’s not the early 80’s any more. They need to wake up, smell the coffee.
Bibhas Neogi Reply

August 7, 2018 at 7:51 am

I would like to thank RWL Davies for his positive comments on my suggestions. Whilst I appreciate that most readers would want Guildford buses to be convenient to use including easy access to the railway station especially when carrying luggage but do not see that it is their job to spell out what needs to be done.

They expect the councils to have the necessary expertise to come up with reasonable solutions. Alas, most of the technical work, I believe, now is done under call-off contracts where jobs could not be open-ended to allow time and pay for innovative thinking. Consultants’ briefs have to be clear and precise enough for them to price the job – hence the impasse.

I have freely given my time to think, assess the feasibility of my ideas in a broad sense and drawing on my experience as a chartered engineer as to what is reasonably possible to do to improve traffic flow and bus usage yet make the town centre pedestrian friendly. These are on my website that could be accessed by clicking on my highlighted name.

Of course, anything that is free, are often not valued, and my suggestions may have been viewed in that light, I do not know. However, I strongly feel that the opposite is the case.

I have had reasonable success in ‘saving’ several bridges from being demolished but strengthened instead, using innovative methods. One such example is close to Guildford, over the A3, that carries the traffic to Farnham.

Another example is the innovative method used for renewing the 1.2 km of road decking of Dartford East tunnel whilst allowing unrestricted traffic on it between 6 am and 10 pm. Sounds pretty impossible, doesn’t it? But it was done successfully and later the Highways Agency used a similar method for the west tunnel.

So, I hope my deliberations would prompt the councils to seriously consider these suggestions and get them evaluated and, if and when proved viable, develop them, getting the necessary work done. As I have said these are holistic solutions to Guildford’s issues.

These measures would not only produce a pedestrian-friendly town centre but also enable dedicated cycle lanes to be accommodated around the gyratory, Millbrook and Onslow Street.