2
Introduction and Background
2.1
Background
Following
the decision by Cookham Parish Council (CPC) in March 2008 that the
Cookham Plan needed to be revisited, the CPC began the process of
recruiting members of the Cookham community to undertake this work.
The CPC decided that the most urgent requirement was to revisit
Traffic and Transport, and accordingly the Traffic and Transport
Working Group (TTWG) was established first.
2.1.1
Recruitment
At
and after the Pinder Hall meeting on February 12th, the
CPC asked people to volunteer to revise the Cookham Plan.
By April, twenty-one residents had offered to be involved and
the CPC decided that all those who volunteered should be entitled to
participate. Subsequently,
three of the original 21 have withdrawn, and the remaining 18 are
listed in Appendix A.
The
volunteers comprise residents from Cookham Village, Cookham Rise and
Cookham Dean and broadly reflect the population mix of the three
Cookhams.
2.1.2
Remit
A
remit was drafted by the group and submitted to the CPC for
approval. The CPC made
some amendments and the revised version was issued to the TTWG in
April. This is attached
as Appendix B. The TTWG
has followed this remit and has not sought any changes to it.
2.2
Strategic Overview
2.2.1
Time scale
The
original Cookham Plan took 20 years as its time scale.
In the opinion of the TTWG, it is very difficult to look 20
years or even 10 years ahead. The
concerns about climate change, the escalation of fuel costs and new
technologies relating to transport in general and cars in particular
mean that transport in 20 years time could be radically different.
2.2.2
Key Assumptions
New
housing is one of the key drivers to the growth of traffic.
Cookham Rise in particular has seen a substantial amount of
additional housing over the last five to ten years.
The signals for the future are mixed – the RBWM is being
tasked with identifying more sites for house building.
However a recent statement by Teresa May, MP for Maidenhead,
supported greater autonomy at local level (see July 24th
copy of Maidenhead Advertiser) so this policy might not survive a
change of government.
In
preparing this report, the Group has not adopted a specific target
for traffic growth but it is assumed that traffic volumes are
unlikely to grow substantially.
2.2.3
Key Issues
One
of the important issues to be considered is climate change.
It is widely accepted that there should be a switch from
private to public transport. It
is also widely accepted that climate change is likely to increase
the likelihood of flooding.
2.3
The Scope of the Project
The
TTWG reviewed the work of the Traffic and Transport section of the
previous Cookham Plan (the Group includes one member from the
earlier team). As well
as the subjects covered previously, the TTWG identified and
researched other issues, which are also covered in this report.
2.3.1
Interfaces with other groups
The
results from the previous working groups have been studied for
interfaces and these have been taken into account as far as they can
be. However, the TTWG
is the first group to report on the revisited Cookham Plan, so it
will be the responsibility of the other working groups to liaise
with members of the TTWG team as and when necessary.
It is possible that the TTWG report will need some revision
after the other groups have reported.
2.3.2
Evidence based approach
The
TTWG approach has been to seek evidence and consult widely.
Appendix C contains a list of the people and organisations
that provided input. Having
studied the evidence, the group studied the options and formed an
opinion as to which of the options was the most attractive or least
unattractive. Where we
were unable to reach a consensus, the opinions of the minority are
also included and clearly identified.
We
have attempted, wherever possible, to reflect the concerns and
wishes of the people of Cookham (as analysed in the market research
study sent to all Cookham households) in the work and
recommendations of the TTWG. Without
this, the work of this group would have no legitimacy.
2.3.3
Topics covered
The
issues covered by the TTWG are listed below and the report contains
sections on:-