Opinion: Guildford Gridlock? That’s Hardly News

Published on: 2 Aug, 2016
Updated on: 4 Aug, 2016

Guildford gridlock, here at Millbrook

By Martin Giles

“Sorry, the traffic seems gridlocked. I will get there as soon as I can.” said my nephew. He was stopping off with his wife on his way home to look at my late mother’s car and see if they could make use of it.

His office was only about half a mile away on the Woodbridge Road. In hindsight it would have been quicker to walk but they needed to continue their journey to Alton and anyway they had not realised the problem until they were in it.

Twenty minutes later he called back: “I have avoided the gyratory by going around the town centre and I am now coming down Castle Hill, but that’s jammed too.”

“Don’t worry,” I said, “just come safely. I will wait.”

After I rang off it occurred to me that we did not even bother to question the cause of the problem. Why would we? Gridlock in Guildford is hardly news these days.

How many similar conversations occur in Guildford every week? The slightest thing seems to bring traffic circulation in the town centre to a halt, queues quickly building up for a mile or more on the feeder roads.

How many frustrated motorists have cursed “planners” or “the council” for the problem? And said angrily, “Why don’t they do something.”

And there’s the rub – what can be done? Talk of a multi-billion pound A3 tunnel might sound attractive but how long will it take and how much of the problem will it solve?

Take the A281 coming up from Shalford. Waverley council is proposing to build thousands of more homes in the Dunsfold and Cranleigh area, many of the new residents will use Guildford roads and the A281 in particular.

Perhaps it should be made a dual carriageway? But even if the money was available, and it isn’t, imagine the objections from those who live near the route? Then, just how would you squeeze the road into the gap at Guildford? And, even if you managed the miracle of doing all that, the increased traffic would end up at the already congested gyratory.

“So Guildford needs a ring road,” some might suggest. Well most of the area to the south of Guildford is designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Are we going to start redesignating some of that too and accept the huge environmental damage?

The “elephant in the room” is that the level of development proposed in Local Plans will change the very character of our borough. Until the central government understands that, until it sees the South East as more than a wealth producing factory, ripe for ever more economic growth, until it recognises that the South East is a region that has a right to preserve what is left of its natural beauty as much as, say, the Peak District, then our environmental future is bleak.

The changes will not be necessarily dramatic. A new largely hidden development here, a bit more congestion there. These things take years.

But one day someone will say: “I remember when Guildford seemed much more distinct from London, when you could still tell it was an ancient county town, when there was more green space and fewer cars.”

And, for all our current traffic woes, they’ll be talking about now.

Responses to Opinion: Guildford Gridlock? That’s Hardly News

Ben Paton Reply

August 3, 2016 at 9:05 am

Thanks for telling it as it is.

Anyone who drives around and has eyes can see that the road infrastructure is at capacity. Just as anyone who thinks about it knows that building more houses will have no effect on house prices.

It is time that our politicians stopped promising things just to get elected or look good and started with some intellectually honest analysis.

A good start would be the honest acceptance that transport infrastructure is a finite resource and is a constraint. Local politicians could also tell the truth about the powers of the council. It has no responsibility for the road and rail network and no resources to spend on them. It is not intellectually honest to pretend that it can force any other government agency to do anything about it.

We need less PR propaganda and more intellectual honesty.

Local Plan promises about new railway stations and A3 junctions which may well never happen are irresponsible fantasy.
Dennis Harvey-Hepherd Reply

August 4, 2016 at 9:59 am

You may think things are bad now, especially when roads on the south side of the town are blocked due to accidents on the A3. That will be as nothing when British Rail close the B3000 New Pond Road at the railway bridge in the near future.

This will be for an unspecified period while they remove the existing bridge and replace it with a new one. Imagine where all the traffic that uses this road will go.

The knock on effect will mean more traffic coming off the A3 at Milford for Godalming and routes into Guildford. Traffic using the route to cross from the A31/A3 to and from the A281 and A25 diverting through the town centre. I forecasts months of hell.
- Bibhas Neogi Reply
  
  August 7, 2017 at 1:22 am
  
  Surrey County Council must insist as the highway authority that Network Rail carry out this work whilst maintaining shuttle traffic on a temporary bridge for at least cars only.
  
  The replacement bridge must not be a like for like replacement. It should be designed to comply with the current standards and provision of cycle lanes on it as well. It may well be that the council has to bear the cost of improvement beyond like for like replacement but anything less would be a short-sighted policy.
  
  I had outlined a way of achieving this in response to Network Rail’s planning application about two years ago.
Jules Cranwell Reply

August 4, 2016 at 3:10 pm

If GBC build enough homes in the green belt around Guildford, adding enough cars to the gridlock it will ensure that the roads are permanently grid-locked, and all can walk safely to work, using the boots, roofs, and bonnets of the stuck cars as a walk-way. The genius of it all is; no more cars going anywhere.

Seriously, the lack of infrastructure planning, and funding make the draft Local Plan a complete joke.

Recent reports show that, if there is indeed a housing crisis, it is in the north of the country, particularly around Manchester, where home ownership has fallen to 1980s levels.

Therefore, we should be asking the question, why are we not requiring developers to build where the homes are truly needed, rather than the south-east, just because there they can maximise their profits?
Daniel Beisly Reply

August 5, 2017 at 10:04 pm

Gridlock Guildford is caused by many factors such as weather, times, vehicle quantities and standard congestion. However no one ever mentions the traffic lights. There are too many.

Milton Keynes has a greater population and more cars, yet no congestion as they have no traffic lights, only roundabouts. The traffic flows very well and pedestrians choose to walk over the roads as and when it is clear, which is quite often.
Bill Stokoe Reply

August 7, 2017 at 6:28 pm

The Guildford Vision Group addresses all these issues in its detailed Masterplan. See it at http://www.guildfordvisiongroup.com.

In respect of the impact of new homes, proper masterplanning of the town centre, not piecemeal development, can make a substantial contribution to the housing need while markedly reducing pressure on the green belt.

Bill Stokoe, is a director of the Guildford Vision Group (Vision for Guildford Ltd)