Our Coast, Our Sea - Traffic in Villages - new approaches to speed, safety and civility

3 August 2010

At an event organised by Bamburgh Parish Council and the Northumberland Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Partnership, Ben-Hamilton Baillie will give an illustrated talk highlighting some of the new ideas to tackle this issue.

Ben Hamilton-Baillie specialises in this area and has been working with National Parks and AONBs to develop new ideas, he has worked with Dorset AONB to build a toolkit for villages. Ben said “this approach could be helpful for any village where traffic-speed and parking impacts on quality of life in rural areas”

This presentation will be particularly interesting to anyone who lives or works in the Northumberland Coast AONB and to Parish and County Councillors, community groups, policy makers and traffic engineers.

The presentation will be on Thursday 12th August at 6.00pm for a 6.15pm start
at Bamburgh Cricket Pavilion in Bamburgh Village. Tea and Coffee will be served from 5.45 pm.

This event is free, but please book your place by calling Iain Robson on 01665 511206 or by email at coastaonb@northumberland.gov.uk.

The talk is part of a wider project in Bamburgh where the Parish Council and local residents are concerned about the impact of traffic in the village. The volume and speed of traffic as well the number of parked cars is eroding their quality of life and is destroying the beauty and tranquillity of the village.

Jude Aldred, Chair of Bamburgh Parish Council said “We are particularly looking forward to hearing about Ben’s work in Dorset and elsewhere and working with him to design a scheme that will successfully manage traffic and parking in Bamburgh whilst respecting the village’s historic setting. We hope that other Parish Councillors from parishes elsewhere on the Northumberland Coast will come and listen to what will no doubt be an inspirational presentation”

Iain Robson, Recreation and Access Officer for the AONB Partnership added “Many other settlements in the AONB have similar issues with traffic and parking, Holy Island, Low Newton-by-the-Sea, Seahouses and Warkworth spring to mind. We see this project in Bamburgh as a pilot scheme, lessons learnt here could easily be replicated in other coastal villages. I would like to encourage residents and business people form these villages to come along to the presentation”

The project has been funded by Bamburgh Parish Council, the Northumberland Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Sustainable Development Fund and Northumberland County Council.