Objection to the Planning Application on the grounds of the inadequacy of the submitted Ground Investigation Report.

The Ground Investigation report submitted with this application is one which was conducted in 2006 and submitted with the Wainhomes application to build houses on the site.

Point No 1

The Planning and Retail Statement for this current application states:-

• “Contaminated Land

8.46 A Ground Investigation was undertaken as part of the previous application on the site.

That work remains valid and is enclosed with this application. This shows that there are no constraints to development.”

At the time of preparation of the 2006 Ground Investigation report the buildings were still standing.

In complete contradiction of the above statement, the report itself emphasizes the following:- ( I quote)

• “Our recommendations are based upon the premise that the site area is to developed on (sic) a residential manner…. However if the actual proposals adopted vary from these assumptions, then the recommendations made within this report may become inappropriate and require re-assessment.”

·        “At the time of the investigation the site was occupied by a large industrial commercial building known as Bradley Mill. The property was in full usage and clearly the operations being undertaken have limited the areas available for investigation”

·        “The report has been prepared by Site Check in association with Wilbourn Associates who have concluded that in their professional opinion further investigation is required to determine the extent of any potential environmental hazards which may affect the site”

• “The Site Check report also indicates the presence of a number of potentially contaminative usages within the vicinity. Of the greatest importance is the reference to Pennine Industries Ltd and Millenium Tool and Mould Ltd who are both located within this site. It is possible that these businesses and the previous usage of the mill structure may have generated potential contamination of the underlying soils…………”

• Boreholes:- … “The locations of the borehole were chosen by ourselves on the basis of those areas to which access could be readily gained and some limited investigations have been carried out within the existing buildings.”

·        Contamination:-  “……Based upon historical site use a number of potential contaminants have been considered which may be on site………It is clear that further intrusive investigations will be required once all building and hard standings have been removed……It is strongly our recommendation that the site be subject to a fully detailed investigation undertaken by an experienced environmental consultant once all areas of the site are available for intrusive investigation.

·        “It is important to recognise that various areas of this site were unavailable for investigation due to the presence of buildings machinery and stored goods etc. Accordingly it is recommended that further investigations should be undertaken once the site has been cleared of all existing structure and hard standings. These further investigations should be targeted to those areas where contamination has been identified and to those areas where investigations have not extended to date……….”

Point No 2

The report was commissioned not by Wainhomes but by the owner of the site Mark Seddon in view of the potential sale to Wainhomes.

It would appear that the Mr Seddon failed to reveal to Site Check the following extremely relevant and damaging information, which has been testified to by several ex -employees who worked on the site.

For several years running up to 2006 there existed within the buildings an operational electroplating line. This comprised four large tanks which contained the necessary chemicals for chromium and other platings. These were located roughly as shown on the diagram below. 

This electroplating facility probably already existed when the current owners took possession of the site. Previously the site had been occupied by a manufacturer of vehicle exhaust systems.

Indeed, the site is still the registered offices of the NORTHERN WIRE PRODUCTS & ELECTROPLATING LIMITED (Company Registration No 01368367), two of whose directors are the current owners of the site although the status of the company is now ‘Non Trading’

The electroplating installation and tanks were dismantled and removed shortly before the Ground Investigation report was commissioned.

Anecdotally the contents of the tanks were disposed of ‘On Site’

Given the number of years that this plant was in operation a grave suspicion must be that contamination of that part of the site by these dangerous chemicals is almost inevitable.

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Point No 3

On the 2^nd May 2009 three quarters of the buildings were completed destroyed by fire.

Although the outer cladding of the building was of modern materials the basic structure was still of 19^th Century origins. From this and the previous uses of the mill, it is highly likely that there was a significant presence of Asbestos.

The fire and subsequent demolition would have distributed this across the whole site and beyond.

When the site owner subsequently started to transport the resulting rubble to his other property in Bradley Fold, the Environment Agency became involved and he was subsequently prosecuted.

Conclusion

In view of all of the above comments from the 2006 report and the new information about the electroplating plant not afforded to its authors, and the subsequent possible asbestos contamination,I insist that the 2006 report submitted by the applicants fails to meet Planning requirements in respect of thoroughness in identifying contamination over the whole of the site and that a new Ground Investigation Report must be carried out to fulfill the applicants environmental responsibilities.

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Objections in relation to the Retail & Planning Statement

Objection to the Planning Application on the grounds that the Retail and Planning Statement submitted with the application contains statements which are untrue, misleading or quoted out of context thus ‘sexing up’ the case for Planning Consent.

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Tesco have provided a Retail and Planning document to justify the Need for, the Scale of and the Benefits that will accrue to Little Lever as a result of the proposed development.

Some of their statements require closer inspection.

Point No 1 - Does it meet the Bolton Core Strategy?

The Retail and Planning document states the following:-


“Policy P2 of the Bolton Core Strategy states that the Council will plan for additional convenience floor space of up to 10,000 m2 in town, district and local centres where local communities have good access.”


However, Paragraph 4.14 of the Core Strategy (which leads up to Policy P2) qualifies this figure of 10,000 sq metres as follows.


“The Core Strategy proposes to increase the quantity of retail floor space in the borough, concentrated mostly in Bolton town centre. This reflects the objective of creating a transformed and vibrant town centre, as well as complying with Government advice contained in PPS4. This approach is supported by the findings of the council’s Retail and Leisure Study. This identifies a requirement up to 2026, of between 9,200 and 11,000 square metres for ‘convenience’ goods and between 74,300 and 134,600 square metres for ‘comparison’ goods, in addition to schemes that already have planning permission. This additional floor space should be developed after 2016.”

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The findings of the Retail and Leisure study actually lay out the requirements for addition floorspace in periods of five years. 2011-2016, 2016-2021 and 2021-2026.


If we examine the figures in the Retail and Leisure survey we can find the Convenience Floorspace Requirement for the whole of the Borough at each of the five year points in this plan ie 2011, 2016, 2021, and 2026.

There are two sets of figures. The second set includes an allowance for overtrading at existing stores.

These are as follows:-

Without an allowance for overtrading:-

Year	Net floorspace requ’dIn	Gross floorspace requ’d
2011	- 476 sq metres	- 733 sq metres
2016	- 1,256 sq metres	- 1932 sq metres
2021	+ 2,726 sq metres	+ 4,195 sq metres
2026	+ 6,510 sq metres	+ 10,016 sq metres

With an allowance for overtrading:-

Year	Net floorspace requ’dIn	Gross floorspace requ’d
2011	+ 793 sq metres	+ 1,220 sq metres
2016	- 24 sq metres	- 37 sq metres
2021	+ 3,922 sq metres	+ 6,034 sq metres
2026	+ 7,671 sq metres	+ 11,801 sq metres

These figures take into account the Sainsbury’s development at Cricketers Way (which is now trading) and the proposed Tesco development at Central St (Back of the Old Post Office and Victoria Hall) which has outline planning permission for a 7,973 sq metre food store but has yet to be built.

They do not take into account the Tesco Longcauseway development which is shortly to open. This development contains net convenience floorspace of 2,792 sq metres.

They do not take into account the Tesco Kearsley development or any recent or proposed increases in convenience floorspace at Middlebrookor indeed the opening of the Spar store in Little Lever.
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Summary of what the above means:-


(Adding in the Longcauseway figures and allowing for overtrading)

Year	Net floorspace requ’dIn	Gross floorspace requ’d
2011	- 1,999 sq metres
2016	- 2,768 sq metres
2021	+ 1,130 sq metres
2026

This means:-

2011 - The Borough already has 1,999 sq metres of convenience retail floorspace more than it requires

2016 - The Borough will still have 2,768 sq metres of convenience retail floorspace more than it requires

Between 2016 and 2021, the Borough will require an additional 1,130 sq metres of convenience retail floorspace.

Please note that these figures do not take any account of reduction of projected turnover due to the recession.
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Conclusion to Point No 1

The Bolton Core Strategy is saying that there is no need for additional Convenience retail floorspace until after 2016.

Thereafter – between 2016 and 2021 there is a need for an extra 1,130 sq metres.

This is 598 sq metres less than the proposed 1,728 sq metres proposed for Pennine Pets.

The statement in the Retail and Planning document fails to qualify the figure of 10,000 sq metres with the time frame and the additional capacity already built (by Tesco) since the Retail and Leisure Report. It is therefore misleading.

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Point No 2

The Retail and Planning document variously states the following:-

“The evidence base behind this policy, which is the 2008 Bolton Leisure and

Retail Study, states that there is a quantitative and qualitative deficiency in convenience floor space in Little Lever which results in a low localised retention rate for convenience retailing.”

The BRLS identifies that a new store of an appropriate scale would increase the convenience expenditure retention rate from 38.4% to 60%.

At the time of the study, Aldi was reportedly looking for a site of 1,500 m2 (gross). This would equate to a net floorspace of some 1,000m².

The BRLS concluded that the development of this additional floorspace, in addition to the existing convenience offer, would increase the convenience retention rate to 60%.

This assumed the existing Tesco Metro (464m2 net) would remain.

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These various statements fail to distinguish between Zone 6 (including Asda Burnden) to which the 38.4% retention rate relates and Little Lever itself, where the retention rate is 13.52%

Zone 6 comprises those areas with a post code BL3 1 & BL3 2. as shown below

This extends from Little Lever through to Moses Gate and down to Burnden Park incorporating a big chunk of Great Lever to the left of Manchester Rd

.

The net increase of 12,674 sq metres (Pennine Pets opens, Tesco Metro shuts) is equivelant to an increase spend of £12.87million. (This assumes the optimum sales density of £10,181 per sq metre per annum as per the BRLS)

This money is not new additional money – it has to come from somewhere and can only come from the other stores where it is currently spent.

The chart below shows the major stores where the convenience spend of Zone 6 residents is located.

Main locations of Zone 6 Convenience expenditure	% of total	Value £m
Asda Burnden	24.57%	£7.89m
Other stores – Little Lever	13.52%	£4.34m ****
Asda Farnworth	9.15%	£2.94m
Asda Radcliffe	12.15%	£3.9m
Sainsbury Trinity St	8.36%	£2.69m
Morrisons Blackhorse St	6.63%	£2.13m
Other stores Bolton	5.81%	£1.87m
Morrisons Mornington Rd	4.74%	1.52m
Tesco Horwich	2.16%	£0.69m
Tesco Bury	3.79%	£1.22m
Tesco Walkden	0.95%	£0.30m
Totals of above	91.83%	£29.49m
Balance spent elswhere	8.17%	2.62m

Without boring you with the calculations the new store would affect retention rates as follows.

• If the increased spend of £12.87million was drawn solely from other major stores outside Zone 6 ( None from Asda Burnden) then the Zone 6 retention rate would increase from 38.4% to 64.65%

• If the increased spend of £12.87 million was drawn from all the other stores in proportion to existing spends, the Zone 6 retention rate would increase from 38.4% to 54.81%

• The retention rate for Little Lever itself would increase from 13.52% to 40.1% wherever it was drawn from.

All this is based upon the premise and assumption that the residents of Little Lever would cease to do their Weekly shop at the other stores mentioned above and instead would patronise the Pennine Pet’s store to the tune of £12.87million.

This is one hell of an assumption

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For this to happen then necessarily the Pennine Pets store would have to offer an equivelant shopping experience to the other stores.

The common feature of the major locations for expenditure shown above is that these stores offer ‘Comparison’ goods alongside ‘Convenience’ goods.

When it comes to ‘Primary shopping’ – ‘The Weekly Shop’ – The Big Shop’ or whatever you want to call it, this includes all the items a household may require – not just food.

It is a ‘no brainer’ to state that consumers have a continuing and regular need to purchase household items, clothes, small electrical household items and other non food goods.

It is the deficiency of the offer in Little Lever of these comparison items (amongst other reasons) that causes residents to travel out to the stores listed above so theycan be purchased alongside their convenience requirements in one trip.

 

The provision by Tesco of a larger ‘Food Only’ store will not alter the above need and is unlikely to result in a increased retention of spending within Little Lever as opposed to Asda Burnden or elsewhere.

Residents of Little Lever (for or against this development) are mystified as why this proposal in for a Food Store only.

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Conclusion to Point No 2

It is the lack of Comparison goods rather than the lack of Convenience goods on offer in Little Lever that is a major cause of trips out for the Weekly Shop.

With the refurbishment of the old Co-op into the Nisa brand and the refurbishment of the old Select and Save into the Premier brand (with a substantial widening of food products) as well as the opening of the Spar shop at the new petrol station alongside the Tesco Metro, Costcutter, Food and Tipple and all the smaller stores,

Little Lever needs more food like it needs another hairdressers !.

WE NEED SOMWHERE WHERE WE CAN BUY SOCKS AND KNICKERS AND SCHOOL UNIFORMS AND TOASTERS AND KETTLES etc.

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Point No 3

The retail and Planning document further states:--

“A benefit of a larger store is that it can provide an even greater retention rate that the 60% set out in the BRLS. This is confirmed in Table 4.15 of the BRLS which shows that with the exception of the three parts of the catchment area with the lowest retention rates, of which Little Lever is one, the majority of the retention rates in the other catchment areas are between 72.4% and 87.5%.”

This is completely untrue !!


There are only two Zones within the Borough which have retention rates of this order.

Zone 2 (Which covers a wide area containing Morrissons Mornington Rd, Asda Astley Bridge, and Morrissons Blackhorse St)(78.23%) and Zone 8 (Farnworth) (72.35%)

Apart from these there is only one area within the Borough with a larger retention rate than Zone 6 and that is Zone 3 (Harwood) with a figure of 42.88%

The 87.5% figure relates to Leigh and Atherton which have nothing to do with Bolton Borough.
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Conclusion to Point No 3

Again the document is trying to suggest that the retention rate in Little Lever (or rather Zone 6) could be and should be easily increased to match the better retention rates of the majority of the Zones within the Borough. This again is misleading and untrue.

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Point No 4   Clawback – Linked Trips – Impact on existing Independent food retailers.

The Retail and planning document further states:-

"By locating on an edge of centre site, the resulting clawback of trade will bring people back to the town for their primary shopping which would enhance the vitality and viability of the town-centre.”

The implication of this is that after visiting the new Tesco people will then visit and shop in other outlets in the Village Centre.

The impact of Large Foodstores on Town and District Centre is a matter of controversy and in some cases a matter of opinion.

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In September 1998, the Department for Communities and Local Government issued a report entitled “Impact of Large Foodstores on Market Towns and District Centres”

This is available online at:-

http://www.communities.gov.uk/archived/publications/planningandbuilding/impactlarge

The following are extracts from this document:-

• The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of large foodstore development on market towns and district centres.

• The responsibility for determining planning applications for large foodstore development, and developing policies to safeguard the vitality and viability of market towns and district centres, rests with local authorities.

• We were alarmed at the number of local authorities (20%) which do not require retail impact assessments to be undertaken as a matter of course

• The significant pressure from foodstore operators to increase their market share means that smaller centres have increasingly become the focus for new store development.

• Our research identified impacts on market share of between 13%-50% on the principal food retailers in market towns and district centres as a result of large foodstores in edge-of-centre and out-of-centre locations.

• These levels of impact on market share have directly and indirectly led to the closure of some town centre food retailers; increases in vacancy levels; and a general decline in the quality of the environment of the centre.

• Our research shows that the development of large non-central foodstores can lead to a decline in the turnover of town centre foodstores (38% impact in the case of Tesco in Cirencester). This can and has led to the closure of some town centre food retailers

• Impact is likely to be most significant for stores which are trading at marginal levels of profitability. Experience shows that foodstore retailers will review store performance, and where stores are performing below a particular turnover/ profitability threshold, these stores will be closed.

• Even where town centre food retailers suffer an impact, but do not subsequently close, there may still be a concern that this will lead to a general decline in activity elsewhere in the centre, and adversely affect the vitality and viability of the centre.

• …….the opening of an edge-of-centre or out-of-centre superstore is likely to lead to 'disinvestment' in the town centre (ie failure to reinvest in store refurbishments, etc). This has implications for the future viability of the individual retailer, and investment in the town centre as a whole.

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To be fair, subsequent to this report, a further study was carried out in Dec 2010 by the University of Southampton School of Geography which broadly speaking contradicted every assertion made in the 1998 report and almost sycophantically praised new supermarkets for their role in revitalizing declining centres.

This is available online at: - http://www.riben.org.uk/report/

This 2010 Southampton report was commissioned by and paid for by - (wait for it )- - -TESCO.

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Following this, a critical review of this Southampton report was published by The Oxford Institute of Retail Management. This was prepared by a Dr Thomas Hastings and is available online at :- 

http://www.nrpf.org.uk/PDF/Wrigley_Review_FINAL.pdf

 

Paragraph 4.2 of this review states the following.

“District Centre analysis.

• A different set of issues relate to district centre case findings which risk undermining the key findings of the (Southampton) research especially those regarding positive spill—over effects of supermarket growth).

• In particular the research suggests that Haydock and Whitefield were relatively unsuccessful in terms of generated linked trip activity – as only 16% of respondents always or frequently combined district centre and food store shopping in Haydock, compared with 63% who ‘never’ combined shopping.

• Only 13.3% always/frequently combined shopping in Whitefield.

• Whitefield in particular was highly unsuccessful in demonstrating the vitality benefits of supermarkets to areas such as this. Whilst 74% of residents previously ‘out-shopped’ this fell to just 68.3% after the opening of the supermarket.

• In terms of pullpower, those from the outer catchment coming into Whitefield rose from 11.2% to just 12.9%.

· The Haydock and Whitefield cases alone are enough to raise serious question marks over the benefits of supermarkets in terms of ‘Pullpower’ and ‘Clawback’ for deprived district centres yet the summary and conclusion of the Southampton study downplay or avoid this fact.”

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Conclusion to Point No 4

1.      Apart from the above, commonsense tells us that the geographical remoteness of the shops along Market St and the Precinct area from the proposed site will not be conducive to pedestrians weighed down with their Weekly Shop to stagger across two arms of a busy junction and walk a further 200 yds to do more shopping.

Equally, for motorists, they are unlikely to pack the weekly shop into the boot on the Pennine car park and then drive up to the Centre and re-park to do more shopping.

To suggest that this would be the case would be to go against human nature, typified by the fact that many shoppers are too idle to even park on the main Tesco Metro car park and walk to the store and instead occupy the disabled and mother and child parking bays.

2. At the present time the existing Tesco Metro adjacent to the Village Centre Precinct does have the effect of linked trips to other shops in the centre.

This planning application fails to point out that these linked trips would be lost to the other businesses if the Metro closes and the overall result of the above points would be decreased footfall in the main shopping area of the Village to the detriment of the vitality and viability of the Village Centre

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Point No 5

Summary

The Application attempts to justify the need for this development both qualitative and quantitative.

In terms of ‘Qualitative need’, they have failed completely inasmuch as by their own decision they will not be offering the comparison goods which are as equally important to the ‘Big Shop’ as convenience goods and lack of which causes (amongst other reasons) trips outside the immediate area.

In terms of ‘Quantitative need’, they selectively quote from the Bolton Core Strategy and neglect to recognize or point out that the Borough is oversubscribed with Convenience floorspace until after 2016.

Their assumption that the development will draw back into Little Lever spending to the tune of £12.87million is theirs to make and their aspiration to increase retention rates to in excess of 70% is fanciful.

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In the absence of any real advantage for the residents of Little Lever and in my view the lack of commercial sense for the development, I suggest that the real reasons for this development are as follows.

1) Market Share

      Supermarkets’ primary motivation is to increase their Market Share

This is the chart from Point No 2 above.

Main locations of Zone 6 Convenience expenditure	% of total	Value £m
Asda Burnden	24.57%	£7.89m
Other stores – Little Lever	13.52%	£4.34m ****
Asda Farnworth	9.15%	£2.94m
Asda Radcliffe	12.15%	£3.9m
Sainsbury Trinity St	8.36%	£2.69m
Morrisons Blackhorse St	6.63%	£2.13m
Other stores Bolton	5.81%	£1.87m
Morrisons Mornington Rd	4.74%	1.52m
Tesco Horwich	2.16%	£0.69m
Tesco Bury	3.79%	£1.22m
Tesco Walkden	0.95%	£0.30m
Totals of above	91.83%	£29.49m
Balance spent elswhere	8.17%	2.62m

This shows that Tesco retains just 6.9% of all the convenience spending of the residents of Zone 6. This compares to 30.5% across the country.

This development would increase their share of the Zone six spending to 24.11%

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2) Fear of development by a competitor

The following advert appeared in UK Land Directory eighteen months ago.

“Residential Development Land for Sale in Little Lever Bolton
Guide Price: £2,500,000
Size: 2 acres
Land Type: Residential Development
Planning Permission: Outline Planning Permission
Land Designation: Brownfield
Seller Last Active: Within the last 18 months
Summary: We have a prime piece of land for sale at the heart of Little Lever which is between Bury, Bolton and Radcliffe just outside Manchester, ideal for residential development or retails scheme such as an Adli type store.”
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The prospects of another supermarket chain aquiring and developing a store on the Pennine Pets site would no doubt send a shiver down the spine of Tesco given the threat it would pose to the existing Tesco Metro which is already undertrading.

Since supermarkets are no longer permitted to ‘Land Bank’, the only way in which Tesco could protect its interests in Little Lever would be for themselves to develop the site, irrespective of the doubtful commercial sense of such a project.

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Final Conclusion

In the battle for supermarkets’ ‘Market Share’ and protecting themselves from competition, there is no altruism.


This development isn’t about what Little Lever needs, it is about what Tesco wants and consequently I object to the Application.

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Tesco at Little Lever. The Planning Application.

Ladsons, the developer concerned have submitted their long awaited Planning Application for a Tesco Superstore on the old Pennine Pet's site at Little Lever

The Planning Application number is 86999/11 and this and all the documents so far submitted can be viewed on the Bolton Council website at the following URL:-

http://www.planning.bolton.gov.uk/DCOnlineV2/AcolNetCGI.exe?ACTION=UNWRAP&RIPNAME=Root.PgeResultList&casefullref=86999%2F11

The period of consultation was stated to be the minimum required by law of 21 days and this expired on 13th December 2011.

Fortunately I was able to conclude and submit my objections before that date.

The submitted objections appear in the blog posts following this one.

Objection to the Planning Application on the following grounds relating to the Transport Assessment

1. The Transport Assessment inadequately addresses concerns related to the Safety of Pedestrians by recommending Zebra/Puffin crossings on only two of the arms of the Junction (namely across Church St and across Lever St) thus leaving no safe means for crossing Ainsworth Rd and subsequently Market St for that proportion of pedestrian users of the development who will inevitably access the site through the Crossley St entrance, - this in the face of the increase of traffic caused by the development.


2. The Transport Assessment completely fails to address the increase in congestion, delays and tail-backs at the Junction, particularly those caused by doubling of the numbers of vehicles turning right from Market St into Ainsworth Rd and the doubling of the numbers of vehicles attempting to exit from Ainsworth Rd into the Junction – (the doubling of these numbers being caused by the development generated traffic.)


3. The Transport Assessment completely fails to address the inevitable creation of Rat Runs whereby motorists, (both those wishing to access the development and also through traffic) try to avoid the increased delays at the Junction, or to suggest schemes to prevent this.


The following six points provide the justification for the above remarks using extracts and figures from the Transport Assessment.

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Point No 1 - Pedestrian Safety at The Junction





Bolton Council specifically requested that a Junction Assessment should be carried out to examine the impact of the extra traffic generated by the development.

Bolton Council also expressed Highway and Road Safety concerns about the increase in traffic through the Junction caused by the development

It is already commonly known that the Junction experiences periods of congestion delay and tailbacks which are just about bearable under the present circumstances.



Such an assessment must be viewed in the context that the A6053, Market St and Church St, is a major arterial route from Radcliffe to Bolton and destinations beyond. Furthermore when traffic on the M60 is blocked this road is also used as a bypass route.

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The Consultants consequently considered Traffic and Pedestrian Management schemes at the Junction to address Bolton Council’s concerns.


• They concluded that Traffic Lights/Pedestrian on Demand Crossings across all four arms of the Junction were unworkable.

• They concluded that a Double Mini-Roundabout scheme was also unworkable.

• The concluded that the only scheme that worked and allowed the Junction to operate within its capacity was the existing layout.

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The Technical note in Appendix I of the Transport Assessment states the following conclusion:-

“11. Conclusion

11.1 From undertaking the three junction assessments of proposed signalised, double mini-roundabout and existing junction configuration, we conclude that only the configuration of the existing junction operates within capacity.

11.2 This is due to the fact that this junction operates at its maximum operational capacity when there is a free flow of traffic between Market Street and Church Street - as these are the two major traffic movements.

When implementing some form of control on the junction (i.e.signalised or double mini roundabout) it inhibits the free flow of traffic along these two arms. This results in congestion and subsequent queues along both Market Street and Church Street.

11.3 However it is understood from the local authority that there a number of safety issues at this junction relating to awkward vehicle manoeuvres and pedestrian movements.

Therefore if the existing configuration of the junction is to remain it is felt that this would not respond to the local authority’s safety concerns and would increase safety concerns due to the additional traffic.”

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In order to ameliorate this, the original recommendations in the Technical Note referred to above were as follows:-

“Recommendations

13.1 Therefore as a solution we would recommend reducing speeds at the junction, implementing signs warning drivers of the various conflicting manoeuvres at the junction and a complete overhaul and refreshing of lane markings.

13.2 In terms of reducing speeds we feel that a small increase in gradient at the junction (i.e.gradual speed bumps along Market Street and Church Street or a speed table at the same level of the footway across the entire junction) would enforce speeds to 20mph. This would cause drivers to slow down and allow them to be aware of conflicting vehicular movements. The raise in carriageway would also allow pedestrian crossing points at the junction to become more distinct and give greater priority to pedestrians.

13.3 Alternatively implementation of rumble strips on Market Street and Church Street on approach to the junction and a red top surface on the two minor roads Ainsworth Road and Lever Street to highlight give way markings would assist drivers in reducing speeds and eliminating driver errors.

13.4 Implementation of signage warning drivers of the sharp bend ahead, warning of junction layout, warning of the conflicting manoeuvres and asking to reduce speeds would also assist in helping driver making better decisions. From observation of the site there is a lack of warning signs on approach to the junction.

13.5 To cater for pedestrian movements, although this is not identified as a major issue by the accident data, push button demand (pelican/puffin) crossings are recommended which respond to demand. This would enable pedestrians to cross safely across the junction without resulting in a significant loss of capacity at the junction.

13.6 Sketches of these recommendations are shown in the two traffic management schemes shown in Figure 13 and 14.


Figure 13 (4 Pedestrian Crossings)






Figure 14 (3 Pedestrian Crossings)




However, for some unknown reason, the main body of the Transport Assessment finally decided to recommends a watered down version of the above as follows.


• A pedestrian crossing across the Church St arm (Either Zebra or Puffin)

• A pedestrian crossing across the Lever St arm (Either Zebra or Puffin) or alternatively a School Crossing Patrol across the Lever St arm.


These would still allow the Junction to operate within its capacity.

In addition to this they recommend Rumble strips, new road markings and warning signs with the aspiration of reducing the speed of approaching traffic.

This is shown below

(2 Pedestrian Crossings)





This fails to provide safe means for pedestrians to cross Ainsworth Rd and Market St.

Whether or not this watered down version would satisfy Bolton Council’s Road Safety concerns is unknown.

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THE REAL PROBLEM


Point No 2 – Traffic flow – Causes of hold ups and delays

The recommendations quoted in Point No 1 above are all to do with Pedestrians and their safety.

They do not address the real problem, which is to do with traffic flow through the Junction as every resident knows.

The Transport Assessment completely fails to address the actual causes of congestion and delays at the Junction which result in traffic ‘backing up’ and how these would be exacerbated by the development.

Below I list some of the causes of the traffic being held up and the consequent delay and congestion.

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Causes at the Junction

• Zebra Crossing (Usually involving a 10 -15 second delay.)

• Buses or HGV’s turning left from Market St into Church St held for a gap in the traffic approaching up Church St because the front offside of the bus or HGV needs to encroach over the centre line of the carriageway to get round.



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Causes remote from the junction.

• Pedestrian controlled crossing in the Village Centre. (Somewhat longer delay than the Zebra)

• Lollipop man at Dearden St

• Traffic proceeding South down Church St attempting to turn right into Dearden St

• Buses stopping on Church St

• Pedestrian controlled crossing near the High School.

• Vehicles dropping off, entering leaving or manoeuvring at the High School.

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These causes exist now and would do so in the future, with or without the development, and so can be discounted except for the instance should the Zebra be replaced by a Puffin crossing which would produce a rather longer delay.

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Point No 3

There is one further cause of hold up which would be made significantly worse by the presence of the development.


That is the movement of traffic along Market St to the Junction which then wish to turn right into Ainsworth Rd.


The carriageway at this point is 12 ft 6 inches from kerb to centre line.

The width of a car with wing mirrors can range from 6ft 4 inches to over 7 feet.

This means that in most cases traffic behind a vehicle which is stationary and waiting for a gap in the traffic flow in order to turn right, is held up until the vehicle is able to turn right.

(This also applies to traffic wishing to go straight ahead into Lever St)





The width of the car in relation to the width of the carriageway is better shown below.




If somebody is waiting to turn into Ainsworth the traffic behind can’t get past.

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The questions to be asked are :-


• “How much traffic wants to turn right into Ainsworth now, thus holding up the flow”

Compared with

• “How much more traffic would want to turn right into Ainsworth if the development was there thus causing greater interruption to the free flow from Market St into Church St.”


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The answers are provided below.


Accepting the Transport Assessment figures.(including at this time the Traffic Distribution – See note below) it is possible to show the following.


The Traffic data for this manoeuvre (turning right from Market into Ainsworth) is as follows:-

Period	Existing 2011	2013 with Development	Increase
Friday AM	30	50	+20
Friday Lunch	25	56	+31
Friday PM	32	64	+32
Saturday Lunch	67	117	+50

Thus with the development the number of vehicles wishing to make this manoeuvre is on average almost doubled thus exacerbating the above described delays.

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Point No 4 - Exiting from Ainsworth Rd.

It is well known that exiting from Ainsworth Rd in any direction across the main flow of traffic is a nightmare at the best of times. At peak times a vehicle can be sat there for five minutes before a suitable gap in the main flow occurs.


The traffic data for this manoeuvre is as follows.

Period	Existing 2011	2013 with Development	Increase
Friday AM	195	245	+50
Friday Lunch	124	266	+142
Friday PM	114	249	+135
Saturday Lunch	171	341	+170

Again with the development the number of vehicles wishing to make this manoeuvre is on average almost doubled.

Point No 5 - Traffic backed up Ainsworth prevents exit from the Development

A further problem which would make this worse is explained below.

In relation to the 2013 (with development) figures, the following distinguishes between normal traffic down Ainsworth Road and that exiting the development and turning right to the junction in addition to the normal traffic.

The figures for this are as below:-

Period	Existing 2011	2013 + exiting the Development
Friday AM	198	+47
Friday Lunch	125	+141
Friday PM	135	+134
Saturday Lunch	173	+168

The site exit at Crossley St is 130 feet away from the junction

Typical car lengths range from 14 feet to over 18 feet.

On this basis and allowing say a two foot gap between vehicles, it would only take 7 or 8 cars to be backed up from the junction for vehicles to be prevented from exiting the development to turn right.

Given the traffic flows shown above this could be quite a common situation.

Further to this anybody behind such a blocked vehicle would be unable to get out of the development even if they wanted to turn left towards Victory Rd.

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Point No 6 - RAT – RUNS

1) Accessing the development

Given the difficulties of turning right from Market St into Ainsworth Rd in order to reach the development and hold ups at the Junction upon leaving the development, (human nature being what it is), will cause motorists to take short cuts through side streets thus avoiding the junction.

Possible short cuts are shown below shown in blue




These are residential streets with parked cars, totally unsuited to rat-run traffic which would greatly affect the amenity of the residents.

2) Through traffic avoiding delays at the junction

The second Rat-Run used by through traffic to avoid congestion at the junction is shown below in blue.




These are generally wider roads through the residential Racecourse Estate. This route already suffers from speeding traffic and a measure of junction avoidance.

Traffic calming measures along this route have been unsuccessfully proposed in the past. In any event although they may control the speed they won’t control the volume.

The far end of this rat-run is the mini roundabout at Redcar Rd/Church St junction which in itself suffers congestion problems.

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