I was made aware recently of a proposition to revamp South Park Drive in Marton, Blackpool, whereby traffic flow and congestion would be greatly improved. The road is currently a bottleneck and there is a constant build up of traffic there.
South Park Drive and Preston New Road, yesterday
South Park Drive happens to be the road that council leader, Peter Callow, and wife Maxine live on. Both are of course councillors but they represent Norbreck and not Marton. The project would drive more traffic past their house which understandably they wouldn’t want.
It’s been said that Mr Callow “blocked” this project by reallocating money to other projects in the town, so I decided to contact the two Councillors for Marton to see what their view was.
Today I received a reply from ward councillor Jim Houldsworth who confirmed that both he and fellow councillor Nicola Best fully support the South Park Drive project and believe that it is long overdue. The money for the scheme was apparently switched to the promenade for roadworks next to the Tower Headland, however Jim confirms that the South Park Drive funding will be addressed in next year’s budget.
Jim has copied my communication to the senior highways officer in the Council who will hopefully provide me with some further details on the project, so look out for an update! (Update is here)
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See – I said you’d get a reply to your liking!
It’ll be interesting to see what else comes back.
In no way should projects like this be aborted or ‘otherwise delayed’ due to the perceived intervention of the interests of senior councillors.
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My guess is the Senior Officer will be Pete Cross, Latif Patel or Karen Galloway and you’ll get some guff about the headlands suddenly becoming a priority. The only problem is that the headlands work and the South Park Drive scheme were, as I understand it, funded from different sources. They serve totally different purposes.
The Return on Investment in my humble opinion would have been far higher had the money been spent on South Park Drive. This affects the lives of thousands of people entering and exiting the down daily. OK, they aren’t tourists and the politicians can’t get face-time by attending the opening of an improvement scheme but that doesn’t mean that those schemes shouldn’t go ahead.
My response to people who complain about traffic noise remains the same; if you don’t like traffic noise don’t buy a house on an A-Road and then demand that Heaven and Earth be moved to suit you. Heaven and Earth in this case being to make sure funding for something you don’t like gets switched to somewhere else despite the Councillors for the area saying it’s long overdue.
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Apparently it’s John Donnellan..
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Pete Cross’s boss.
Seems your enquiry has warranted a response from someone really senior.
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Hopefully, if I get one.
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“however Jim confirms that the South Park Drive funding will be addressed in next year’s budget”
Looks like he forgot to add the “… shortly after the Callow regime has been deposed.” at the end!
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An important distinction has to be made here I feel.
The scheme itself would not have driven more traffic past their house. Instead it would take the traffic which already trundles past there at peak times and managed it far more effectively through the junctions:
(1) Where West Park / East Park / South Park Drives meet.
(2) South Park Drive / Preston Old Road.
(3) South Park Drive / Preston New Road.
The traffic volume would have been the same. It would just have flowed a lot better and resulted in a shorter journey time through that section. If you think this sounds like uninformed knee-jerk NIMBYism you would be right.
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Surely though, if it became a more free flowing route, more people would be inclined to use it?
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Not really because it’s the route of choice in the morning and evenings anyway. The improvements would be felt most by people who used the area at peak times. Anyone going anywhere elsewhere would be already using a different route.
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[...] an email back from the Assistant Director for Built Environment, John Donnellon, in relation to my recent query about South Park Drive. No revelations, unfortunately, but he confirms what Cllr Jim Houldsworth [...]