Julian Sturdy

Following a recent meeting myself and Cllr Wiseman had with the Highways Agency regarding our campaign to improve road safety at the notorious A64 Hazelbush Crossroads, I am pleased to say that officials have agreed to look into improving safety at this accident black spot.  

Over 12 hundred people signed our petition calling on the Highways Agency to provide funding options for improving road safety at this junction. This huge amount of support from local residents enabled us to send a strong message to the Highways Agency at the meeting, that action must be taken.

The Highways Agency is now revisiting this junction once again and has already earmarked funding options for improvement work in the 2009/10 budget. We have also been lobbying York City Council to work alongside the Highways Agency to help provide improvements on the access roads that serve the A64 at this busy junction.

Local bus company First York  have announced plans to cut services. They are proposing the removal of the evening service after 7.30pm on the number 10 route (Stamford Bridge to Poppleton) which comes through Dunnington, the number 13 route (Copmanthorpe to Monks Cross) and the number 12 route (Haxby to Acomb Park).

I am very disappointed the bus company is proposing to cut some of its services for villages on the edge of York, particularly in the evening. People living in these villages without direct access to a car rely heavily on these services to get them in and out of York and will be isolated after 7.30pm. If we are to persuade people to use public transport on a more regular basis to cut down on the ever increasing traffic congestion, it is essential to provide a reliable integrated transport system that can meet everyone’s needs, cutting these services is a backward step and does nothing to help achieve this.  This week I attended the Annual Parish meeting in Dunnington, one of the villages to be directly affected by the proposed cuts. It was made perfectly clear to me the strength of feeling against the bus companies decision, these local bus services are a vital life line for rural villages like Dunnington and we must fight to keep them.

I will be meeting with First York to discuss the proposed cuts over the next few days and keep readers informed of my progress.