Oakdale Councillor apologises for lack of information over road closures

A trial ‘point closure’ in Kingsbere Road is due to be installed this week, following a decision by BCP Council to extend the closure of Darbys Lane and introduce the closure of Kingsbere Road in Oakdale.

However, Oakdale Councillor Felicity Rice has said that she wishes to apologise and "that communication has not been as good as it could have been."

She said: "Speaking to residents over recent weeks, and reading all the facebook posts, there is some crucial content that has been missing."

Diagram of the point closures

Councillor Rice said information that was missing included Poole having some of the UK's 'most dangerous roads' and details on alternative transport options that have less of an impact on climate change.

The council provided various consultation options, and the consultation is on going while the trial is in place.

However, Councillor Rice, says "residents are still missing keys bits because of the way the council interacts with the population (and has done for the last two decades), and it has always been hard to engage in early enough stages to influence design, in the BCP area.

"I personally did some extra engagement work on this particular project, however I was keen to acknowledge that it’s not as good as it could be, and improvements will be made. It is possible to do better engagement with residents, but needs investment in staff to be able to take the time to do it well. Hopefully the focus on Asset Based Community Development will start to progress this investment."

Councillor Mike Greene, portfolio holder for transport and sustainability said: "The Darby's Lane closure was introduced last year by the previous administration, without prior consultation, along with several others around BCP. When considering each of these closures, I have relied heavily on the view of local ward councillors, who should know the area they represent best. In this case the Oakdale Ward councillors are very strongly in favour of retaining the Darby's Lane closure.

"However, the closure has clearly not achieved all that was intended, because traffic has continued to find its way through the Oakdale area side streets using Kingsbere Road and Hennings Park Road and if we are going to look at keeping the Darby's Lane closure in place as the ward councillors want, the only real way is to introduce a further closure in Kingsbere Road. So that is what is happening for an experimental period.

“It is important to note that both the Darby’s Lane and the Kingsbere Road closures remain experimental trials to allow us to understand what the effect is on all road users during this time, and I would encourage everyone who lives nearby and uses these roads to share their views with us in our online consultation form: https://haveyoursay.bcpcouncil.gov.uk/kingsbereroad”