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Cycle lane and double yellow lines scheme in Great Yarmouth divides local residents

Norfolk County Council also wants to introduce a weighbridge to stop large vehicles from using Jellicoe Road

Residents of Great Yarmouth are divided over a scheme to introduce a cycle lane and double yellow lines on a street in the Norfolk seaside town.

Norfolk County Council is currently consulting on the proposals for Jellicoe Road, which runs due east from the beach towards Caister Road, and which has a primary school on it as well as being adjacent to the town’s racecourse, reports the Great Yarmouth Mercury.

The eastern part of the road, running from the roundabout by one of the entrances to the racecourse to the sea and divided by a central reservation already has double yellow lines on either side.

According to local Conservative councillor Paul Hammond, more residents are opposed to the proposals than are in favour of them.

“They should have given people more choices,” he told the newspaper. “We are happy for the weight restriction and cycle way but we do not want the yellow lines. A cycle way on the footpath would have been much better.”

But one resident said that she had got so fed up with people parking in front of her driveway that she had painted double yellow lines outside her house to deter people from doing so – although the council quickly painted over the makeshift markings.

Other people living on the street expressed concern however about whether the proposed restrictions might impact carers of local residents, as well as affecting households with more than one vehicle.

In a statement, a spokesperson from the council said: “Earlier last week we wrote to residents of Jellicoe Road and Fremantle Road as part of a preliminary consultation concerning the proposed installation of some small sections of double yellow line waiting restrictions on the western end of Jellicoe Road, in addition to waiting restrictions already in place and the proposed introduction of a new 7.5 ton weight limit on Fremantle Road to prevent unnecessary access of large vehicles not suited to this residential street.

“This exercise is to gather feedback from residents ahead of any statutory consultation on the changes required to traffic regulation orders currently in force in the local area.”

The council has extended the deadline for responses to the consultation to Friday 7 October.

The scheme is one of three for which Norfolk County Council successfully bid for £955,000 in funding from the Department for Transport, the others being in Gorleston and Norwich.

The cash comes from the government’s Active Travel Fund, initially launched by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and ex-Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps in 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

While they were keen to encourage active travel and reduced car use as part of their plans for the country’s recovery from the pandemic, the policy at times met strong resistance from local councils – and in many cases, ones controlled by the Tory party itself.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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19 comments

Avatar
FrankH | 1 year ago
1 like

Quote:

Jellicoe Road, which runs due east from the beach towards Caister Road

Due east from the beach is the North Sea (and, eventually, The Netherlands). Jellicoe Road runs due west from the beach towards Caister Road.

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eburtthebike | 1 year ago
3 likes

The most interesting thing in the article from the Mercury is the announcement that cycling and walking there is getting more funding than the rest of the UK combined:

"The scheme is one of three in Norfolk worth £955,000m and aimed at boosting cycling and walking."

Isn't that £955bn?  Wow!  Just WOW!

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chrisonabike replied to eburtthebike | 1 year ago
4 likes

Actually true. But you'll really lose it when you see how they'll use it...

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eburtthebike | 1 year ago
7 likes

According to local Conservative councillor Paul Hammond “They should have given people more choices,”

Unless one of those choices is cycling.

I hate to get political, you can all vouch for that, but are all tories completely lacking in self-awareness?  Never mind, Thick Lizzy will sort things out by giving the bankers the bonuses they so richly deserve.

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Awavey | 1 year ago
2 likes

Jellicoe Road is one of the entrances to Great Yarmouth Racecourse,they dont just have donkeys on the beach and horse carriages as their only equine activity in the area, they have horse racing throughout the summer at the racecourse as well as a number of concerts, and youve got Haven holiday park there as well. It may look wide but it gets surprisingly busy.

As to why the councillor recommends a cycle path ? well it would link in with all the rest of the cycle infra in that area, its a shared path on Yarmouth Rd/Caister Rd and probably one of the few times Ive chosen a shared path over riding on the road, because the road is insane

they dont really do segregated infra in that part of the world, and even when it teases you into thinking theyve created a dedicated cycle lane, not only are you riding in between people walking to & from the prom/beach, but there is a road train and a bunch of horse carriages sharing it with you.

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belugabob | 1 year ago
1 like

It makes about as much sense as this road having marked parking bays, on the carriageway, despite just about every house having room on their driveways for at least 2 cars.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/XxRJ24YPr3ojcV2U7

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OnYerBike replied to belugabob | 1 year ago
0 likes

belugabob wrote:

It makes about as much sense as this road having marked parking bays, on the carriageway, despite just about every house having room on their driveways for at least 2 cars. https://maps.app.goo.gl/XxRJ24YPr3ojcV2U7

It might not be the solution I would have opted for, but given the location I would guess it's related to the nearby station - if there were no parking restrictions I can imagine a lot of people would leave there cars there all day and catch the train into London for work. 

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belugabob replied to OnYerBike | 1 year ago
0 likes

There are restrictions - precisely because of the station. Surely it would have been better to put down double yellows to provide unimpeded traffic flow...

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steaders1 | 1 year ago
3 likes

Still won't prevent cars being parked there

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BalladOfStruth | 1 year ago
4 likes

That's the widest residential road I've seen in my life - what the actual f*ck are they complaining about!? They could dig one lane up and turn it into a weirdly long park, and it would still be wider than most residential streets I can think of.

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srchar | 1 year ago
5 likes

The councillor would prefer a bike lane on a footpath that looks to be around 2m wide, rather than a road that appears to be as wide as a dual carriageway?

Please tell me I've missed some vital detail.

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belugabob | 1 year ago
4 likes

I'm struggling to see how a road can head "due east from the beach" in Great Yarmouth

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brooksby replied to belugabob | 1 year ago
4 likes

Clearly they meant the other east...

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eburtthebike replied to belugabob | 1 year ago
1 like

belugabob wrote:

I'm struggling to see how a road can head "due east from the beach" in Great Yarmouth

Jesus does it all the time.

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wycombewheeler | 1 year ago
6 likes

"Cycle lane and double yellow lines scheme in Great Yarmouth divides local residents"

 

pretty sure you can walk across a cycle lane, it's not like the Berlin wall

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Mungecrundle | 1 year ago
4 likes

I would expect the usual contradiction that cycle lanes create congestion (and nobody uses them anyway) but that allocating twice as much road space for the purpose of storing stationary vehicles is desirable.

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brooksby | 1 year ago
3 likes

Is it me, or does that road look HUGELY wide? Like, American wide?  Plenty of space...

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OnYerBike replied to brooksby | 1 year ago
5 likes

Agreed - measured on Google Earth I make it about 14.5m wide. Looking at the Google Streetview history, it doesn't look like an especially busy road or that a huge amount of parking space is actually used (although I guess the situation might be different on race days etc.) As alluded to in the article, much of the road is residential with driveways, which already restricts the available parking space. (As an aside, despite the space available it would appear people often still insist on parking on the pavement!).

I can't see any reason you couldn't fit good cycle tracks (2.0m in each direction), a buffer zone (0.5m next to each), two lanes of moving traffic (3.5m each) and there would still be space for parking on one side (2.5m). 

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eburtthebike replied to OnYerBike | 1 year ago
3 likes

You're either a radical left wing socialist, or an extreme right wing fascist.

Fess up!  Which is it?

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