Why do we need one of these?

The residents

IT has to be said that at 10.30 on a sleepy Thursday morning, Woodlands Grove in Heworth doesn't seem much like a 'rat run'. It's a wealthy residential suburb tucked away behind Stockton Lane. The occasional car drives past, seeming in no hurry - but it's no more than you would expect on a street like this.

"What traffic is going down here that needs a bollard?" asks Ivan Hollis crossly. "The council calls this a rat run. It is not. There is the normal amount of extra traffic here at rush hour. But that's something you have to accept."

Ivan is one of many residents of this quiet suburb who are up in arms at council proposals to site York's newest 'intelligent bollard' in Straylands Grove.

The £60,000 bollard would cut off a popular short-cut between Malton Road and Stockton Lane - one used by locals going to Monks Cross and by motorists entering York and heading for the city centre - to all but residents of a few privileged streets.

It would effectively turn Straylands Grove, Woodlands Grove, Westlands Grove and other streets opening off them into a giant cul-de-sac - except for those residents who had cards to raise and lower the bollard.

As one of the residents who would benefit, you would expect Ivan to be a supporter. Far from it.

It is potentially very divisive, he says, and has already caused resentment. "People in the Stockton Lane area pay rates, a portion of which is for the upkeep and maintenance of roads in this area. As such, they should be free to drive along the roads that they contribute towards," he says.

Ivan is not alone. In fact, so strong is local opposition to the scheme that residents have conducted their own survey of streets to test what the level of support for an 'intelligent bollard' would be.

A postal survey carried out by the council last November of nine streets which could benefit from the scheme apparently revealed 70 per cent support.

Nonsense, scoff locals. The council survey was a classic case of the local authority getting the answer it wanted by asking leading questions, and only consulting people they knew would give the response it was looking for.

Residents claim their own survey of the same nine streets reveals that far from supporting it, 65 per cent of householders are opposed.

Campaigners against the bollard have marshalled an impressive array of arguments against it.

It would be costly, they point out - and the levels of traffic don't justify it. Once it is in place, there will be nothing to stop the council hiking up the £20-every-three-years charge for those who use it.

The extra traffic will have to go somewhere - leading to extra queues and traffic jams at, for example, the Heworth roundabout and Hopgrove Lane South. And the bollard would be divisive, setting street against street.

Woe betide anyone with a bollard card who was trying to get out on to Stockton Lane at rush hour, says Jean Frost, another anti-bollard campaigner who lives in one of the roads that would supposedly benefit, Elmpark Way. They need not expect many people to make way for them. "People will be so resentful they will be saying 'ooh, they're not coming out!'" she says.

John Bibby, whose house on Straylands Grove is close to the site of the proposed bollard, is also furious. "It is being foisted on us," he says. "We're going to have to pay to drive into our own driveway," adds his wife, Shirley. "And what if you have visitors or deliveries? What happens then?"

A more general point worries Ron Godfrey, a journalist who lives in nearby Green Sward.

If Straylands Grove, where next? he asks. "It would be open sesame for every little enclave in every little parish in York to declare UDI," he says.

The traffic planner - Peter Evely, City of York Council's head of network management

Peter Evely says the Straylands Grove bollard is needed not because of traffic levels today but because of what will happen in future.

Massive future development at Monks Cross and in the Foss basin will see a significant increase in traffic levels, Mr Evely says. Work is due to begin soon on an office complex at Monks Cross which will employ up to 1,500 people - and planning permission is being sought for more offices that could employ a further 1,500 people.

At the other end of Malton Road in the Foss basin, meanwhile, approval has been given for a massive expansion of Sainsbury's, and for a new Morrisons plus other shops and homes.

The council commissioned two traffic studies to look at the effect this development would have, and as a result has produced two traffic master plans: one for Monks Cross, one for the Foss basin.

A range of traffic measures are being proposed, the £21m cost of which is being shared between the developers, the local transport plan and the Highways Agency.

Some of these measures - such as the recently opened Monks Cross Park & Ride - are large in scale, Mr Evely says. Others, such as the proposed Straylands Grove bollard, are small.

The aim of the bollard, Mr Evely says, is to "protect residential amenities over a very wide area". Traffic modelling shows that without the bollard, a number of streets will see a "massive increase in use".

These include:

Melrosegate

Tang Hall Lane

Dales Lane

Hempland Avenue

Heworth Village

Hempland Lane

Woodlands Grove

Straylands Grove

"This increase will not only affect those who live on these roads but those who live on the many side streets off these roads," Mr Evely says.

"The heavy volume of traffic will make it difficult to enter and leave these streets and will increase noise, air pollution and environmental intrusion into areas that are currently relatively quiet and peaceful.

"The increase in traffic will also increase road safety concerns, particularly at the Stockton Lane/Hempland Lane junction."

The council would be negligent if it did not take measures now to prevent this, Mr Evely says.

There is nothing new about restricting traffic movements in residential areas. But while traffic-calming measures such as road humps may help reduce speed, they don't reduce the volume of traffic, Mr Evely says. Intelligent bollards do.

They are not going to start springing up everywhere, he says. "That would be hugely expensive. Where, however, the use of a single bollard installation can have area-wide benefits, then this option may well be appropriate."

Initially, Mr Evely concedes, traffic that is no longer able to cut through Straylands Grove "will divert in the short term so as to use either the Heworth Green /Malton Road junction or the Hopgrove Lane/Malton Road junction. This will therefore increase the use of both and add initially to the current levels of congestion".

That will not last, however, he says. "In the longer term, traffic will divert from much further away, finding entirely new routes which avoid the use of Melrosegate entirely. At that stage, pressure on the two junctions mentioned will ease. This pattern has been well observed in a number of instances, most notably the closure of Deangate in the late 1980s."

A rising bollard cannot be introduced without a Traffic Regulation Order being made. People have three weeks to make their views heard. Write to Rod Jones, Acting Assistant Director (City Development and Transport), 9 St Leonards Place, York by March 8.

The consultation

The city council sent out 340 consultation letters to householders in nine streets in the immediate neighbourhood of the proposed bollard, including Straylands Grove, Woodlands Grove, Elmlands Grove, Westlands Grove and Elmfield Terrace.

The consultation set out four options, according to residents. These included a rising bollard; speed humps; road signs; or doing nothing. Of 340 consultation letters sent out, 183 (54 per cent) were returned. Of these, 128 were in favour of the bollard.

Residents' own house-to-house survey of the same streets, conducted recently, revealed a different picture. Each adult living in the affected streets was consulted, and the results, residents claim, was as follows; 253 against; 140 for; 35 no opinion.

Residents are angry that those living in nearby streets that may be expected to cope with extra traffic were not included in the council consultation.

Why weren't they included?

"Because obviously the further you go the more people might feel that they would be inconvenienced by the bollard and therefore would be more likely to vote against," said Coun Ann Reid, executive member for planning and transport. She then quickly corrected herself. What she intended to say, she said, was: "The further away you go, the more choices about journey route people have."

The Bishophill bollard

As well as the notorious Stonebow bollard, there is one other rising bollard in York city centre, at Victoria Bar in Nunnery Lane. It was installed nearly two years ago to stop people taking a short-cut through Bishophill from Nunnery Lane to Skeldergate Bridge. Has it worked?

Yes and no, says Dave Foster, landlord of the Golden Ball in Cromwell Road. Bishophill is a lot quieter at rush hour, which used to be "a bit of a nightmare".

But the bollard operates 24 hours a day, when it really only needs to be in use at peak times, Dave says. It has also caused some problems. Taxi drivers cannot use it; and some now refuse to come into certain areas of Bishophill. Visitors - and delivery vans coming to the pub - can also find it confusing.

The bollard does also go wrong sometimes, Dave says. It tends to stay in the 'down' position rather than the 'up' position, however, and he's not aware of it causing any accidents.

Updated: 11:44 Tuesday, February 15, 2005