Street Audit: Accessing Clitheroe from the Railway Station.
Issues Found;
- Information Boards are not illuminated and the peripheral illumination from the platform lighting is not enough to allow easy reading.
- There isn’t a Town Map to assist visitors of where to find local amenities.
Recommendations:
Fit adequate lighting for the information boards.
Site a town map with directions and local information.
- Direction signs are in need of maintenance.
- Illumination is inadequate throughout the walkway, during the winter months the walkway is very dark and intimidating.
- Direction signs at the bridge end of the walkway are obscured by foliage.
- Waste bin is overflowing.
Recommendations:
Carry out regular maintenance to the signage.
Look into increasing the light levels within the walkway.
Cut back the foliage obscuring the direction signs.
Reschedule bin emptying timetables.
- The post in the middle of the walkway seems to serve no purpose other than to be an inconvenience.
Recommendation:
Remove the post.
- Bridge underpass footpaths are very narrow and inadequate for baby buggies or wheelchair users. Having to use the road to access town is hazardous as vehicles access the underpass for the Chester Avenue car park and other amenities.
Lighting is minimal and not very helpful.
Recommendations:
Modify the footpaths to double the width on the one side and remove the other to allow access for vehicles.
Increase illumination levels.
- The ‘Welcome to Clitheroe’ sign looks a little clumsy, not very decorative and out of keeping with the rest of the town décor.
- There is underused space by the post boxes.
Recommendation:
The ‘Welcome to Clitheroe’ sign could be more decorative and in keeping with the towns other decorations i.e. Castle gates, railings and town notice board.
The space could be used for a small flower garden with a sculpture and seating.
- While there is signage before the bridge underpass guiding the visitor towards the town centre there are no clear directions once you exit the underpass apart from the outdated wooden fingerpost which is damaged and obscured by foliage.
Upon exit of the underpass the visitor is faced with three directional options:
1) Turn left taking you to the bus interchange – footpaths are wide and in good condition, unfortunately this route takes you away from the centre of town. There is the option of using the crossing point by the interchange that takes you into Railway View Avenue and then on into the town centre, at best this could be called be called a scenic circular route.
2) Turn right (which, by far, seems the more natural route to take given the street layout) taking you along by the Platform Gallery where you then have the dilemma of trying to cross a very busy intersection to access King Street or take a long walk to the Zebra crossing situated by the Market entrance and back again. Observation at this point has shown that people will risk life and limb to cross this junction instead of using the Zebra crossing by the market entrance. There are dropped kerbs and road markings that indicate a crossing point by the Railway Station ticket office, this unfortunately, is not clearly defined and with no central safe haven or Zebra crossing installed the risk when using this crossing point is considerable.
3) The third option is to cross the very busy road where the crossing point, to the left of the underpass, is unclear and the road markings are somewhat faded. There is a small central island that can be used as a safe haven when crossing. A negative point about this particular crossing is that wheel chair, scooter and baby buggy users feel unsafe in the central island due to the narrowness of the island and the speed of traffic, at this particular point traffic has accelerated on leaving the roundabout junction and speeds can be considerable. On both sides of the crossing the dropped curbs have too much of a lip and are outside recently updated government and current LCC guidelines. The road surfaces are uneven and hold water after rainfall. On reaching the opposite side of the road and turning right the visitor is confronted with another inadequate dropped kerb that leads to a very uneven road surface across the alleyway entrance behind Dawson’s store and then another dropped kerb that seems to steer the wheelchair user back into the roadway to gain access to the continuing pathway. There is little obstruction from then on, apart from the twin posted sign, allowing progress into King Street. Disabled access to King Street via the crossing points leave a lot to be desired on safety issues and the sheer inconvenience caused is considerable.
Recommendations:
The King Street / Railway View Road junction screams out for Zebra crossings to be allocated on each arm of the roundabout, people have been stranded on the central island and there have been numerous near misses as people try to dodge the traffic to cross the junction. Disabled access to and from the railway station is not adequate from a safety and a ‘right to access’ standpoint, Zebra crossings would help to alleviate this problem. Pedestrian natural crossing sight lines also support the need for Zebra crossings at the junction arms.
Replace the damaged wooden fingerpost with a new one designed in keeping with the towns other fingerposts.
Reposition the dropped kerbs to be either flush with the road surface or to the 6mm maximum height as per government guidelines.
Resurface the damaged or uneven road making sure surface water drains away.
Mark the two existing crossing points with a different colour so that pedestrians and motorist can see that it is a crossing point.
Reduce the speed limit to 20 mph thus allowing easier pedestrian access.
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