St Mary's controversial traffic calming measures win national award

Wednesday 15 June 2016

Drivers might still be trying to get their heads and cars around it but a controversial £865,000 project to make the roads safer for people walking around St Mary has scooped a national award.

The Department for Infrastructure won the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation award for making the parish easier to get around on foot while maintaining the character and identity of the village.

Months of road closures in St Mary started at the beginning of last year to create an off-road foot path alongside Verte Rue, safer and more sheltered areas to wait for the bus and some new traffic calming features outside the school, pub and garage.

But drivers have been complaining ever since that the new bumps in the road were unnecessary and vandals had their own crude protest to the works last year when they dumped oil over the newly imported granite at the 'roundabout' style crossroads by the parish church. 

But the competition judges think DFI have done a slick job working with the parish to come up the scheme. They said they liked the way it sought to address wider village issues and said it was an excellent example of public consultation and engagement, showing that rural villages can be transformed for moderate budgets.

CIHT Chief Executive Sue Percy said: "The CIHT Awards are a celebration of all the excellent work currently taking place in the sector. They demonstrate that our industry continues to produce high calibre schemes, innovative products and ways of working, that contribute to both the transport community and society.

Infrastructure Minister Eddie Noel said: “I am pleased that we have won this award. We are a bit isolated in Jersey. These awards provide us with an opportunity to see how we rate against work that is going on in the UK. To have this kind of recognition from people who are experts in this field is great for our engineers, great for St Mary and great for the Island.” 

Connétable of St Mary Juliette Gallichan said: “It was gratifying to see the importance the judges gave to the level of consultation and engagement with the St Mary’s community.”

Meanwhile work is due to start this summer to improve the road on La Grande Route de St Laurent.