Newsletter - Tue 11 Apr, 2023

A25 Reigate to Dorking set to benefit from £1.8 million of funding

Surrey County Council has been awarded £1.8m from the Department of Transport’s ‘Safer Roads Fund’, which will go to improving the A25 from the end of Reigate High Street to the cockerel roundabout as you enter Dorking.

The Road Safety Foundation (RSF) identified the stretch as one of the worst A-road routes in England, per vehicle kilometre travelled, with there being a total of 70 collisions resulting in injury from 2017 to the end of November 2022, including one death.

Most of the scheme design will take place this financial year, 2023-24, with the majority of the construction taking place in the next, 2024-25.

Proposals include:

• Improvements for pedestrians and cyclists within Dorking and Reigate through cycle tracks segregated from vehicles and pedestrians "wherever possible", using kerbs and/or traffic wands, and the narrowing of the carriageway to help cut vehicle speeds.

• Measures to mitigate the risk and consequences of vehicles leaving the road – made up of carriage way line markings that create vibration if a vehicle strays too close to the edge, and on the main bends high "containment" kerbs to stop vehicles leaving the road

• Central white line hatching to separate opposing flows of traffic – along 40 mph sections of the route "where there is sufficient road width" to help reduce the risk of overtaking and head-on collisions.

• Speed management measures including a lower 30mph stretch between the Dorking roundabout and the Watermill pub

• Improvements at the junction with Brockham Lane to reduce speeds, help turning movements, and help residents cross the A25

More about the background to the scheme and how it fits into improvements within the South East, can be found on the Surrey County Council website (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Number of dogs that can be walked in public spaces could be reduced

The number of dogs that can walked per person in Reigate & Banstead could be cut from six to four, as part of the borough council’s scheduled review of Public Space Protection Orders (PSPOs) later this year.

It’s not a firm proposal yet and any change to the “borough-wide” rule (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) will only happen after the PSPO review and associated consultation, but the idea was aired at a council committee meeting (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) on 16 March.

Councillors discussed (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) problems of dog waste (apparently both poo not picked up and bags left behind), with Reigate Heath described as the worst in the borough.  Other concerns were the numbers of dogs being walked, and them not being properly on the lead when they need to be – examples of problem areas given were Epsom Downs where there are horses, and Earlswood Common (parts of which require dogs on leads).  

Responding to suggestions that licensing changes could be made, a council officer told the meeting: “We do have a PSPO that states that anybody can walk six dogs at one time. 

“Those PSPOs are being reviewed this year and very soon and so there will be an option for us to reduce that, possibly down to four which a lot of people consider more manageable.”

The meeting also heard that the borough’s cleansing team uses a communication strategy to try to encourage dog owners to behave responsibly, and that there is a dog warden who can issue tickets for infractions of PSPOs.

Clarification 15 April 2023: the above text has been amended to clarify that dog rules vary in different parts of Earlswood Common.

Borough elections: lists of candidates published

Local elections take place on Thursday 4 May when one third of the seats on Reigate & Banstead Borough Council will be decided.

In total 15 members will be elected onto the council, one from each ward.

The council is run by the Conservative Party, which holds 27 of the 45 seats. The Green Party makes up the single largest opposition party with nine members. There are a further six councillors representing their Residents Association and three Liberal Democrats.

More from Chris Caulfield, Local Democracy Reporter, together with the list of candidates he has put together, is here (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).

Information about the elections, including postal and proxy votes, and Voter ID, is on the borough council website (Öffnet in neuem Fenster).