Written 08/02/05

Your parish council has been trying to get a crossing put in on Milton high street outside Tesco between Winship Road (the service road down to Cambridge Evening News) and The Rowans. The users of this crossing would be villagers walking to Tesco, in particular the elderly from sheltered housing in Barnabas Court, employees of Cambridge Evening News and the many other industrial units to the east of the high street, people wanting to get the bus into the city, and also cyclists coming off the Jane Coston bridge and now wanting to proceed northbound on the on road cycle lane.

The council bid for this under a small works programme for the current financial year and won but it has been a long battle since. They wanted a light controlled crossing which cyclists could use too and that's what was originally bid for. However the safety audit, done after the bid was awarded, ruled this out. They were then offered a central refuge. Councillors commented that this would be next to useless for cyclists unless it was at least 2m wide (and wider if it was to cope with bikes with trailers) and would also be very bad news for any cyclist who was on road at that point (as had been found with refuges which were in the high street previously).

The council was then unexpectedly offered a zebra crossing. Why this passed a safety audit when a light controlled crossing didn't is less than clear but the parish council unanimously accepted this option last night.

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