Orchard Shops

At long last another step forward.  Today Stockton Council issued the necessary notice, granting permission to demolish the burnt out shops.  I've spent a lot of time in recent weeks working with council officers to try to find a way to speed matters up and finally this announcement came today.  Of course it's only the next stage.  Getting rid of the burned and charred remains will make a huge difference to the appearance of the site and might mean that we can have some movement on the blocking off of car parking spaces at the front.  Disabled people are not finding it easy to access the Library at present, having to park at the side and negotiate the cobbled paving.
The next question of course is, what's going to replace them?  The owner has said all along that he wants to see shops there, and so do the people of Eaglescliffe.  But not just any shops.  The shops need to be affordable so that the services people want can come back - the pharmacy which provides much more than a prescription service, the hairdresser, the dry cleaner, the fish & chip shop, the Indian and Chinese takeaways, perhaps even the betting shop!  We don't want the shops to be so expensive that they are never occupied.  That parade, with the library at one end and the community centre at the other, is the heart of the area and needs to be full of life again.
No doubt there'll be changes.  Perhaps there'll be flats over all the shops rather than just at the end.  They'll surely have good secure rear yards, learning the lesson from recent events.  The front paving probably won't be quite as attractive to bmx and scooter fans.  We hope it'll be easily accessible from the car park and easy to walk along.
I hope that the owner is going to work with the community to come up with a design that will be the best for the area and good for him by being profitable too.

Orchard Estate Traffic Calming proposals

A few years ago complaints about speeding and terrible parking near Junction Farm School led Egglescliffe Parish Council to ask for action from Stockton Borough Council.  The Community Engineer drew up plans for traffic calming along Butterfield Drive and for parking restrictions near the school.  During the consultation people from the Birchfield Drive area pointed out that "rat-runners" would simply use their road as the cut through so a wider scheme was drawn up and consulted on.  Broad agreement was found, but no money for implementation.
Fast forward to September 2011.  The Western Area Transport Strategy group meets to finalise the spending of its budget.  Thanks to underspends on some things agreed earlier in the summer there's a bit of the budget left.  The group agrees to fund the provision of a staggered barrier on one of the approaches to Allen's West level crossing to minimise the risk to children approaching it.  Still a few hundred remain - not enough for any of the schemes which had been put forward unsuccessfully.  Eventually it was agreed to spend that money on the necessary statutory consultation on traffic calming on Orchard Estate, so that if the funding becomes available next financial year the scheme could go ahead quickly.
Last week the consultation notices went up on lamp posts.  Immediately the questions have started to arrive on the phone and by email.  Alan and I will try to get round and answer as many as possible this week, and hope that those who want to comment do write in to the address given (Mr D E Bond, Stockton Borough Council) and make their views known.  There's a balance to strike between the safety of the children at the school and the comfort of car users moving round the estate.  Let's hope residents help us to get it right.