Issue - meetings

One petition has been received requesting Surrey County Council to redesign the Ottershaw Roundabout to provide a solution to the current flawed design. and to have a full and meaningful public engagement on a revised design presented in a new planning application.The full wording is attached with the Cabinet Member response.

387 people signed this petition.

(i)         Details of petition

“We the undersigned petition Surrey County Council to Redesign the Ottershaw Roundabout to provide a solution to the current flawed design. AND to have a full and meaningful public engagement on a revised design presented in a new planning application.

Justification:

Surrey County Council (SCC) approved the planning application for the roundabout in July 2022. This had many serious flaws pertaining to veteran trees and hedgerows amongst other issues which made it a very bad solution for our village. In October 2022 the Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) amendments and Side Road Orders (SRO) were published which materially affect the approved scheme to a significant degree.

The scheme has been affected to such a degree since approval was granted, it now needs further re-engagement with the public for consultation and a new planning application submitted.

The so-called public engagement through SCC Commonplace is not fit for purpose and is trying to elicit public opinion on landscaping details before a design is established . Most people are unaware of the process and the options are just ‘tick boxes’ which DO NOT constitute meaningful engagement with the community. We believe this to be a deliberate and cynical attempt by SCC to bypass the democratic process by using a technical loophole to achieve the least line of resistance to their plans.

Despite strenuous efforts by the Ottershaw residents groups, SCC have not fully engaged with the community, and in fact have repeatedly ignored our pleas for information. They have also chosen to ignore alternative suggestions of design which would work best for the community and residents. We believe SCC has no intention of listening to the community or changing the scheme as it currently stands.

The issues which need to be urgently addressed through redesign and re-approval include.

Veteran Trees and hedgerows will be lost

Local traffic congestion will not be resolved

Cycling and pedestrian routes drastically reduced

No A320 crossing north of the roundabout

Drainage ponds close to the village centre to become stagnant muddy eyesores.”

Submitted by: Gemma Pickett

Signatures: 387

Cabinet Member Response:

This petition sets out concerns predominantly regarding the design of the scheme and a lack of engagement, but also raises a number of individual issues to be addressed.

Design

For the reasons set out below, the County Council do not consider that the design for the Ottershaw Roundabout element of the A320 scheme is flawed; and as such will be preparing to construct the scheme, as approved through the planning process, in accordance with the Decision Notice issued on 27 January 2023.

i] The scheme as presented and awarded planning was fully developed through Feasibility and Preliminary design stages, with numerous options and iterations being sequentially created, reviewed and tested in order to arrive at the current, final Detailed [Works] design now being prepared for construction.

[ii] As with elsewhere within the A320 scheme, the Ottershaw proposals meet the principal purpose of the HIF scheme i.e., to improve the capacity of the Highway network  ...  view the full decision text for item 2c

The deadline for petitions was 14 days before the meeting, and no petitions have been received.

The deadline for petitions was 14 days before the meeting, and no petitions have been received.

The deadline for petitions was 14 days before the meeting, and no petitions have been received.