Dear Gemma

Thank you for the petition which was submitted requesting a pedestrian crossing on Queen's Park Avenue, Billericay between Trafalgar Way and Portman Drive to enable children and families to cross the road safely when accessing schools and pre-schools.

I can confirm that this matter was raised through the Basildon Local Highways Panel {LHP) for consideration. The LHP is responsible for making the decisions about which local highway schemes to recommend for design, costing and implementation in their area. Each panel has a set budget and meets at least four times a year to review requests for their area and prioritise which ones to put forward for further validation and design. 

The LHP, which consists of Local County and Borough/City/District Councillors, consider requests which have sufficient community support as long as there is some degree of justification for it, for example:

•    The scheme reduces casualties;

•    The scheme improves safety; and

•    The scheme represents good value for money.

Although our design engineers agree that this would be a suitable location, the speed data was slightly too high and as such, they couldn’t take the request forward. Therefore, they moved a nearby Vehicle Activated Sign slightly closer to the pedestrian refuge in the hope that this would reduce vehicles speeds and would then permit a zebra crossing being taken forward.

The County Member will be updated as soon as the team have the speed data back. I therefore recommend that you keep in contact with Cllr Anthony Hedley for any updates.

We are continuing to advertise for a School Crossing Patrol Officer at this location. Presently we have this advertised as a fixed term 6 month position, in the hope that it may attract someone to come forward who is looking for a shorter-term role. We have had some interest back in 2021, but unfortunately none of these candidates progressed further forwards for a variety of reasons.

I hope this information is of assistance.

Kind regards

Cllr Lee Scott