So what are the Five Es?

In short the Five Es are the village’s Road Safety Group’s basic principles for improving Road Safety in West Bergholt. The Road Safety Group was formed two years ago prompted by:

a concern for safety around the Co-op zebra crossing, and
the need to create a second road safety plan for:
- the school area, and
- other roads around the village.

The group is made up of Borough & Parish Council members and volunteers from around the village. We are engaging fully with Essex Council and Anne Brown, our County Councilor has a significant interest in our campaign.

The Five Es

No single action will be able to remedy the problems we have in the village as certain people will always think that they are above the law and will park in dangerous and illegal places. Therefore, at an early stage the Road Safety Group decided to try and tackle the issues using 5 areas:

Engage the community,
Encourage good driving and parking (£),
Educate all sections of the community (£),
Enforce the regulations (£££),
Engineer revised road layouts (££££).

Achievements so far

Progress is slow but steady. So far some of the things we have accomplished/worked on are:

Held a community workshop to engage with residents in the village to look at problem areas and solutions.
Adopted the free app try.gve (now called Safeland), to log poor parking, we now also have a process for reporting oﬀending Commercial vehicles via this app. At one point about 70 local residents were using this app.
Lobbied for increased attendance of the Borough Council parking patrol car.
Continuing to push for recruitment of a Special Constable to help enforce parking law.
Designed and put up information banners at key areas in the village.
Engaged with school and local businesses.
Advertised at the Pharmacy about parking safely in the village.
Supporting a reduced speed proposal for roads into the village.
We continue to review signage in the village.
We continue to patrol and to recruit parking monitors.

What are we hoping to achieve in the future?

The rules of delegation from North Essex Parking Partnership are being reviewed. If permitted the Parish Council will be asked to consider the feasibility of engaging its own Warden.
To continue working with the School, possibly through the School Council, to produce new banners and find innovative ways to encourage safe parking and driving.
Introduce a Pledge Scheme at the Village Fete in September to promote safe driving and parking.
Continue to lobby the Local Highways Panel, through our Borough Councillor, for reduced speed limits on the approach to the village and within the village.

If you care about making our roads safe and have a small amount of time available we need your help. Although outside help will remain a long-term aim and we will lobby the Authorities heavily for support, competition for limited resources is fierce as all large villages in Essex have a similar traffic problem.

You can help in the following ways:

Set a good example by driving and parking responsibly.
Use the app Safeland (formerly known as try.gve) and upload photos of badly parked vehicles; you can be anonymous if you like.
Become a volunteer parking monitor to talk with drivers more formally and issue advisory notices. If appropriate think of becoming a warden in the future.
Join the group to refresh the ideas we have and take an active role in their implementation.

Contact with the group can be made through the Parish Clerk [antibot mailto=”[email protected]”] or 01206 240772.

Harry Stone 31/07