Tag Archives: North Colchester

Crumbling roads

The County Council has not spent enough money in recent years and admit that our highways are ‘in managed decline’.

David has resisted this. Raising issues in public, in meetings of the County Council. Lobbying for work. Escalating issues and raising a budget amendment to seek extra money for spending on roads and paths.

The good news – his campaign has helped. With extra government and County Council cash for catch-up work. The County Council has an extra £17.4m, but across all of Essex, however we should see some real improvements by end of this summer.

David will keep pressing for better.

A big thank you from Ness!

Thank you so much to the 1,624 Mile End residents who voted for Venessa so that she can continue her hard work on behalf of everyone living here. Venessa told us after her incredible win:

“It is an honour to be elected in Mile End this year, and thanks so much to all the residents who have put their faith in me. Thanks to Phil Coleman, David King and Martin Goss, of course, for all their continuing hard work. I am already hearing a lot from residents about various concerns and will work hard to support all residents of Mile End.”

Northern Approach Road bus lane work commences January 2023

𝗥𝗮𝗽𝗶𝗱 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘁 𝗦𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 𝗡𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗻 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗥𝗼𝗮𝗱 (𝗦𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗔)

The proposals for Colchester’s new Rapid Transit System (RTS) across the borough will start to come to fruition from the week commencing 16th January when Colchester and Essex Councils begin work on the scheme.

This phase of the RTS will implement a segregated bus lane from/to the A12 from/to the centre (and eventually beyond) and will also see a segregated cycle lane and pedestrian infrastructure, as well as green spacing. The initial works will prepare for this first phase. There will be traffic management in place during this period up until end of February (not closures), although this is limited to 10am-3pm to avoid peak travel time.

The mature trees along the NAR (yellow storage side) will mostly be removed with the promise of some being replaced and some of the mature trees being replanted.

Click below for full details of the plans

https://www.essexhighways.org/highway-schemes-and-developments/highway-schemes/multi-district-schemes/a120-a133-link-and-rapid-transit

https://d0cs.colchester.gov.uk/Publisher/mvc/listDocuments?identifier=DC&ref=222144

Keeping safe during fireworks season

Fireworks are an important time of year which is marked on many family calendars. It is always recommended to go to properly organised displays such as that held at Castle Park by King Cole Kittens or those organised at local schools such as the excellent display at Heathlands in West Bergholt.

It is not recommended or permitted to have random fire work displays in public open spaces, playgrounds or parks. Should an accident happen the person letting off fire works in a public place is liable and therefore not insured. The council certainly won’t be picking up the tab for someone’s carelessness. Nine times out of ten people leave all the fire work litter behind as well!

Please do not let off fire works in any of our parks or open spaces.

Issues in Mile End

With the school holidays now here, there are low level issues going on in Mile End keeping the team busy.

These include dealing with low level anti-social behaviour where residents face disturbances from children causing issues in our neighbourhood. This can be noise, leaving litter around, swearing or slightly more serious matters.

All issues must be reported to the police at the time of the incident and this can be done via 101, in an emergency 999 or via the Essex Police website.

If you have an issue you’d like to discuss please do get in touch with the team.

Your Mile End survey responses

We have been out knocking on thousands of doors in our area getting your views and feedback on Mile End.

Your priorities include the NHS (we fight for better pay & recruitment).
Climate change (we press Government to keep their promises. And do
all we can, from installing heat pumps & insulation, to tree planting)
Education and schools (where we press for better funding, a Personal
Education and Skills Account to help later life learning and
more apprenticeships). We also help schools directly with
grants towards gardens and forest schools and help with planners).

Locally you like what we do (thank you!) but ask we continue to chase the
County Council over road repairs and to help tackle litter. We do of course!

Trinity school update!

Great news that after a sustained campaign and lots of pressure from your Lib Dem team the Trinity school design plans have at last been lodged! Parents and pupils were let down by the Department for Education and their builders. But we now are underway.

David King and Martin Goss have met with DfE, and David has engaged Essex County Council and the Gilberd, to ensure everyone does all they can to deliver the new school at Chesterwell to the latest opening date of September 23. That will be tight. Contingency plans are being worked up.

But we will do all we can to ensure plans are passed in Colchester as swiftly as possible. And that DfE deliver to time. We will continue to chase and keep the pressure on all parties.

Shepherd Drive sign replaced

Small things matter, including correcting accidental damage caused by others.

For some reason an HGV delivering to the local Coop store on Nayland Road,
decided to take a wrong turn into Dickenson Road in August 2021, which
is a very narrow 20mph zone.

Martin Goss got onto the East of England Coop and after being pushed from pillar to post was eventually given details of the Manchester Coop who deliver for East of England Coop.

Martin said “I got the right contact after numerous emails and being pushed from pillar to post but tenacity pays off! The Coop insurers paid Colchester Council for a new sign and repair work where the verge was also badly damaged.

It has taken 5 months to sort this out but I am pleased to say the massive hole left and damaged sign have been repaired and rightly at nil cost to the taxpayer.

Residents are delighted with the new sign and repair.”

Northern Approach Road bus lane

The planning application for the Northern Approach Road bus and cycle lane has finally been submitted for planning approval by Essex County Council.

Colchester Council planning committee will be the final arbiters on the scheme approval. Cllr Martin Goss called the scheme in for their approval as some
concerns are raised about the design.

Although the bus lane has been known about since the inception and build of the houses on the Northern Approach Road development in 2003 the whole design has changed as it now includes dedicated cycle lanes.

Some of the main concerns raised include the noise levels which will exceed legal limits of 68DB in places. The entire 8 foot high acoustic fence will be moved within meters of housing blocking out natural light and over 60 London Plain trees will be felled which have over 20 years of growth.

Essex County Council also propose removing a crossing at the southern end of the Northern Approach Road.

All of these issues have been highlighted as being totally unacceptable.

To comment or views the plans please visit https://www.colchester.gov.uk/planning-app-details/?id=b61d4bf2-54f0-eb11-bacb-000d3ade7c07#ValidationSummaryEntityFormView

Election results in Mile End & Highwoods – a big thank you!

A big thank you Mile End!

The election was held on May 6th and both Martin Goss and David King were successful in their election results.

Mile End for the Colchester Borough Seat was as follows:

Martin Goss (Lib Dem) 1974 (65.5%)
CON 583 (19.3%)
LABOUR 328 (10.8%)
GREEN 139 (4.6%)

Mile End and Highwoods County Council seat was as follows:

David King (Lib Dem) 2221 (39.9%)
CON 1856 (33.3%)
LABOUR 946 (17.0%)
GREEN 387 ( 7.0%)
REFORM UK 162 ( 2.9%)

Thank you to everyone with a heartfelt thanks from Martin and David who voted to elect us to carry on the great work in Mile End and Highwoods along with Cllr Phil Coleman.

A huge thanks also to Anne Turrell who retired from being County Councillor with nearly 20 years service!

She will still be helping the team in the background.