As village residents will know, the Parish Council have commissioned a traffic consultant to advise on village-wide traffic issues, namely road speeds throughout the village. The aim is to make the entire village a 30 mph, with specific areas such as Oldbury Lane around Ightham School, a 20 mph zone. Efforts are also being made to address specific areas of concern such as speeding traffic on Borough Green Road, The Street, Fen Pond Road and Bates Hill and we have contacted the Police to ask them to monitor the speeds. We have now received the report and the next stage is to lobby Kent Highways and the Joint Transportation Board at TMBC to set up the speed calming measures that have been recommended by the consultant.
We have been advised that an effective way of achieving speed calming is by establishing a Community Speed Watch Scheme (CSW) whose volunteers will monitor, on a frequent basis, speed throughout the village. Once sufficient data has been gathered, this can be passed to Kent Police with a request for police speed surveillance units to visit Ightham and formally undertake a speed enforcement exercise.
If anyone would be interested in being Ightham’s CSW co-ordinator (all necessary training will be given), please contact the Parish Clerk on ighthamclerk@gmail.com.