Visiting Waterlooville last week, you couldn’t fail to notice the massive crossing/bridge being installed by Maurepas Way.
Wow! It’s a substantial feet of engineering and by golly it’s BIG! The current subway is inaccessible to wheelchair users, so this new ramp (Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) compliant) will be predominately for them to gain access to both sides of Waterlooville.
A new crossing is also being installed on Maurepas Way dual carriageway. It will be a signalised crossing, not sure whether this is instead of or as well as the current underpass. We can’t help wondering what this new crossing will do to the flow of traffic. Maurepas Way was installed when Waterlooville’s precinct was built in 1985. It’s a shame that this by-pass can’t be by-passed further as Maurepas Way really acts a dividing line between old Waterlooville town and the new developments.
While I was in the town last week, I took a few pictures of the Sainsbury’s construction.
The basic shape now seems to be in place and once that cladding is completed on the outside, all the real work will be happening behind closed doors and we won’t see the shop until it opens.
We have no definite date as yet, just a banner that says Winter 2014 – so before Christmas!
I went down to sainsbury last week and just inside the door was a job notice for waterlooville and it also said opens on the 3 rd of dec
I really don’t see the need or point of it?! It will create traffic. The tunnel underneath is fine ! And if it’s not then work on that instead. Waste of money?
Clearly you’ve never looked at the ramp nor the space around it. The current tunnel has no ramp down to it so is useless for wheelchair and scooter users who instead have been detouring almost a mile extra for many years
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The existing underpass cannot be extended to install a legal ramp either. Again, many have asked this, nobody has looked
For all the complaints, nobody except for the havant area disability access group wrote to object or made representations to the planning committee. We love the ramp, however it is too long with no resting places.
And as to the cost, it was paid for by sainsburys as part of their community infrastructure levy, built cheap which explains no lights and it exiting onto the road in the car park. Not very safe really but HCC are continuing to ignore us.
One thing is obvious, the crossing is clearly biased for traffic. It took us ages to cross
Now you know some facts.
I can’t bear the current pedestrian access – Eti’s brain is thoroughly shaken up when ascending and descending those stupid steps with a buggy. Something had to be done, but I dread to think what will happen to the flow of traffic. I currently detour through Cowplain, and may continue to do so! Good report btw
I was going past the construction while I was on the bus this morning and wondered what was happening. My next thought was ‘I know where to look to find out!’ And I was right :)
What a total waste of money!!!!! I agree the ramp down at the moment is terrible for pushchairs, but all that needed to be done was to level it as a slope. It’s very hard pushing down sloping steps as well as up. Also … why is the new one so long. As said previously, all a crossing will do is cause accidents due to traffic. The car park could have been made safer to walk through with the money wasted on this project.
Great job guys, I always enjoy your pictures and stories.
Ridiculous idea, do the people who make these decisions have a brain or even live in the area!
Most council planning is done from a central place! Probably about 15 miles away! We had very similar problems where we used to live in Romsey. All planning came From Winchester, Winchester couldn’t see the problems! But the locals kept on at them without listening even Test Valley borough Council was telling Winchester it wouldn’t work! It even went to Hampshire Highways dept! Who said more planning was needed! I am very reluctant to go down the town! I am sure it will affect all businesses eventually
The decision actually went in front of Havant Borough Council due to a very small piece of non-highway land being required by the final revision of the plan. As secretary of the elsewhere-mentioned Havant Area Disability Access Group we actually objected to the ridiculous construction given its excessive length, failure to meet Government published standards, and general unfitness for purpose. I sat in front of the committee and we made our objections known – but ultimately they were disregarded.
The planning application was well advertised, and given that it went before the Planning and Development Committee, it saw more lead time than most decisions – yet nobody else from our community bothered to register to either support it, or object to it.
Strangely though, certain information, such as the shared cycle-path usage was omitted from the documentation, both on the website, and as provided to the Councillors. They were rather unhappy at the meeting, and I personally was furious. But that’s democracy for you.
BUT the point still stands – we ALL have the opportunity to have our say on developments in our community, but as the Lottery used to say “You’ve got to be in it, to win it” – in other words, watch the weekly lists and speak up!
I saw a notice at the Farlington store that the new store will open December 2014 … just in time for Christmas!!
Linda Marsh
Vicky Evans
Surely the steps at the other side could have just been made into a ramp? Clearly more money than sense. They need a new road out of there not just a ramp for the disabled.
We brought this to the Council some years before – the resulting ramp would have been too steep, exceeded legal requirements (not that this makes a lot of difference) and would have resulted in injury and possibly deaths.
What a total waste of money, why not fix the under pass that’s already there, surely damn site cheaper, by the time you get to the top of the new ramp you will need new lungs, the length of it surely not needed, and would not making that area into an exit ramp for traffic been money better spent??? How many pedestrians will be struck on that very fast and busy road before they decide that was another big mistake?????
The existing ramp even if the steps taken out is too steep a gradient for wheelchair users and mobility scooters. I Have seen someone tip over backwards whilst trying to go up a supposidly disabled friendly ramp and gain a nasty head injury.
There are strict guidelines where constructing a ramp for disability/public access and I am pretty sure the current underpass access would not allow the correct gradient to be achieved. This would explain the construction, but tend to agree the traffic will be a nightmare with the light system.
Will be interesting to see how the traffic flows out of the car park once Sainsburys is up and running. The queue backs up to the DFS store quite regularly. Once you add traffic flow coming out of Sainsburys car park you may be stuck in that queue much longer.
Planning at it’s worse!! If they were going to spend the money then a bridge would have been better. at least the traffic would not be stopped every few minutes. A road to avoid when it’s finished!
Does anyone know when the petrol station is being built??
Why don’t people engage Braun before Facebook. Elementary maths and simple observation proves the existing ramp could not have been adapted. It would need to have been increased by over 50% and where was the space?
Before the ramp, us disabled had a mile detour which nobody ever noticed though until the ramp opened its been 1.5+ miles with lethal pavements and crossings to survive.
Sainsburys have paid for this under CIL so no waste of council noney . also the lights are heavily biased towards traffic…. So little impact there.
So what we have is plenty of I’ll informed guesswork and insane ideas for impossible civil engineering.
One last point. Unlike many highway projects this did go through planning. When I wrote on behalf of our access group to object to the design, and later made a representation to the planning committee where were all of you? Sorry to be blunt but to complain you must be prepared to act, or have acted. Nobody did and you have precisely what everyone but those for whom it was designed wanted. In our opinion it is too long with no safe resting points, has no lights, and the fact it is also a cycle path was seemingly kept secret until halfway through the meeting.
A cheap, poorly designed and badly built waste of sainsburys money. But at least WE tried.
Sorry to be blunt, but there has been so much I’ll considered opinion on this issue.
Hi Andrew – here’s your story in The News: