Traffic In The Village
Over the last few years, traffic in the village has reached levels of both inconvenience and danger for the users of the village centre. As there is every reason to believe traffic levels will increase in the future, the Parish Council believe action must be taken to preserve the character of the village. We intend to explore in depth a number of options; removing heavy vehicles from the village centre, pedestrianising the village centre or only allowing one way traffic through the centre.
Eliminating heavy goods vehicles from the centre would provide a safer and cleaner environment for pedestrians. Ideally the restriction should also apply to Macclesfield Road close to The Square where the road is very narrow.
After the recent work in the village centre when the road was closed for several weeks we received many requests for the arrangement to continue. The possibility of a purpose built by-pass to Holmes Chapel has been mooted but appears, at this stage, extremely unlikely in terms of logistics and cost. However, it would be wrong to rule it out as a potential long-term solution bearing in mind the need for major changes to eliminate rat runs and to improve traffic flow on the available routes. We do not believe the problems are insurmountable but would like the option to be explored in depth. One possibility would be to allow one way traffic through the centre and, especially if heavy vehicles were excluded this would offer significant benefits.
The costs of such work would be high but in the long term the cost of taking no action will also be substantial, especially in terms of pedestrian safety and viability of the retail community.
There are other less costly options such as reducing speed limits further or traffic calming measures and these will be considered but we would prefer to see a bolder approach, as discussed above, which would benefit Holmes Chapel over a long timescale.
Considerable disruption occurs in the village from time to time as a result of inconsiderate parking on pavements mainly by heavy vehicles loading and unloading goods or just visiting the local shops. Despite the shortage of parking spaces, the Parish Council support parking restrictions and loading and unloading restrictions where necessary for road safety purposes.