ePetition details

Road Safety in Guildford

We the undersigned petition Surrey County Council to We the undersigned petition Surrey County Council to immediately implement stages 1,2 and 3 of the London Road (Guildford) active travel scheme and ask Surrey County Council to significantly reduce pedestrian waiting times at pedestrian crossings to improve active travel journey times.

As a concerned parent of children attending Schools in East Guildford I want them to safely be able to cycle to school and cross the road in a quickly and safely.

Started by: Sam neatrour

This ePetition ran from 04/10/2024 to 16/01/2025 and has now finished.

1106 people signed this ePetition.

Council response

In line with the Surrey County Council Petition Scheme, paragraphs 27 and 30, the Executive Director of Highways, Infrastructure and Planning has provided an officer response to your petition:

The London Road active travel scheme has seen a significant level of community engagement including a stakeholder reference group that represented the community in co-designing the engagement material.

A comprehensive engagement took place between September and December 2023, with 8 drop in events and resulted in a detailed engagement report that was published as part of the Leaders decision meeting that took place on the 27th February 2024. Agenda for Leader Decisions on Tuesday, 27 February 2024, 10.00 am - Surrey County Council

Despite significant engagement, the results of the engagement showed that between 49% and 51% of the community were in favour of the scheme with a significant proportion of the community who were opposed to the scheme.

At the Leaders meeting in February 2024, a decision was made not to proceed with section 3 due to the restricted width of the road and footpath outside Guildford High school and it was felt that with only 49% in favour of this section this was not sufficient to proceed. This decision was made in accordance with the democratic process of the County Council.

In addition the Leader requested further independent technical review on section 1 relating to the narrow section of footway and carriageway, which was carried out by Arup and presented to Cabinet on 29th October, Agenda for Cabinet on Tuesday, 29 October 2024, 2.00 pm - Surrey County Council

Cabinet decided, after hearing both verbal and written evidence not to proceed with section 1 due to specific concerns from the disabled community about shared use spaces. The decision once again is in accordance with the democratic decision making of the county council.

However, work is progressing to construct section 2, Boxgrove Roundabout to improve the safety of both pedestrians and cyclists using this busy roundabout.