Coventry is set to designate its first “Liveable Neighbourhood” in Earlsdon. Following a year of consultation, the plans are to be considered by the Council on 8th January.
What is a Liveable Neighbourhood?
A Liveable Neighbourhood is somewhere where streets are designed around people rather than traffic. It is shaped by the community, through working with residents, businesses, and organisations to understand local priorities. The main objective of this scheme is to work with the local community to co-develop a package of measures to reduce the impact of traffic and increase walking and cycling levels, with an opportunity to create more attractive environments through public realm enhancements and greening.
Earlsdon was chosen for the first pilot scheme as the community has historically reported traffic and transport issues that a Liveable Neighbourhood is well placed to tackle, including speeding traffic, rat-running traffic, lack of pedestrian crossings, and parking issues both for motor vehicle and cycles.
The proposals
Following two sets of consultation and petitions, the final revised scheme includes:
- Footway widening outside Earlsdon Primary School, Earlsdon Library and Elsie Jones House
- Seating, planting, and futureproofing for West Midlands Cycle Hire dock outside Earlsdon Library
- New Zebra crossing on Earlsdon Street, with corollary changes to parking on Earlsdon Street and Moor Street
- New Toucan crossing on Albany Road, with designation of a cycleway along a short length of Albany Road to allow cycles to cross the road.
- Road closures on Arden Street and Shaftesbury Road
- Cycle exemption to existing and proposed one way and no entry streets.
- No entry for cars from Kenilworth Road to Stoneleigh Avenue. This will enable the enhancement of the national cycle route at this junction.
- Strengthening of traffic calming proposals on Beechwood Avenue and a change to the proposed priority chicane at the Tennis Club entrance so that it is more effective.
- Additional traffic calming measures are proposed on Beechwood Avenue, including reducing the lengths of proposed and existing double yellow lines so that parked cars can act as a traffic calming feature.
- Raised tables at the following junctions:
- Beechwood Avenue / Warwick Avenue / Stoneleigh Avenue
- Broadway / Belvedere Road
- Spencer Road / Spencer Avenue / Dalton Road
- Improving visibility by adding an island at Earlsdon Street zebra crossing to physically prevent vehicles parking on the zig-zags – this will provide space for cycle parking, benches, and low-level planting outside the pedestrian visibility splay.
- Narrowing the junction of Moor Street and Earlsdon Street to reinforce the existing No Entry and to shorten pedestrian crossing distance.
- Futureproofing for potential West Midlands Cycle Hire dock on Warwick Street.
- The imposition of a 20-mph speed limit over the whole area.
The plan is to be funded by grants from the third tranche of the Active Travel Fund via the Transport for the West Midlands (£500,000) and Sustrans (£270,000).
Cabinet Member for City Services, Cllr Patricia Hetherton, is recommended to approve the plans at a meeting to be held on 8th January.
If approved, statutory consultation will be then be undertaken for those measures that require a Traffic Regulation Order or a Notice of Intent. The scheme will be implemented in the 2023/24 and 2024/25 financial years.
Earlsdon will be the first Liveable Neighbourhood to be delivered in Coventry. If the pilot is successful and funding continues, the Council will consider a future programme of such schemes across the city.
The Coventry Society’s View
The Coventry Society supports the proposals for a Liveable Neighbourhood in Earlsdon. We commend the Council on the extent of the public engagement undertaken, which is many times more than was done for City Centre South. The Society has previously recommended that the expansion of the Liveable Neighbourhood approach should be at the front and centre of the reviewed local plan for the city.