The County Council have decided to update the Stratford-upon-Avon transport strategy prepared during 2003. To help guide the work, they have appointed a Reference Group – in other words, an Advisory Committee – to comment on the work as it progresses. The Group is chaired by Ian Heggie, our Treasurer and Vice Chairman of the Stratford Society, and includes 13 additional members representing the District, County and Town Councils, the TMP, Stratford voice, local schools, local taxi and bus operators, the Birthplace Trust, local retailers, local restaurants and pubs, and a representative of the local community.

The Group held its inaugural meeting in December to agree their terms of reference and held their first substantive meeting on 27 th March. The purpose of the March meeting was to review a paper summarising the key transport issues facing the town. The idea was to agree on what the issues were, before starting to look at potential solutions. The issues paper first provided some background and then grouped the issues under a number of headings as follows: (i) parking strategy (mainly a responsibility of the District Council); (ii) Park & Ride; (iii) the role of intelligent transport systems (ITS) in helping to reduce congestion and inform motorists of the various options available to them,; (iv) the use of soft measures aimed at reducing transport demand; (v) measures which re-allocate road capacity (e.g., to reduce traffic on Clopton Bridge); (vi) the scope for using vehicle access restrictions (e.g., to reduce HGVs on Clopton Bridge); (vii) the scope for improving bus and rail connections; and (vii) the scope for encouraging more walking and cycling.

An interesting aside is that a re-analysis of the County’s 2003 traffic data, which showed that only 7% of morning peak hour traffic in the town centre was through traffic (i.e., it simply travelled through the town), also showed that about 34% of peak hour traffic consisted of “cross town” traffic, i.e., traffic that originated in one part of Stratford and travelled through the town to reach its destination on the other side of the town. A further 39% came from outside the town and stopped in the town centre itself -- the classic target for Park & Ride.

Much has changed since 2003. Some 750 new houses have been built in Trinity Mead generating an estimated 5,700 additional vehicle trips per day, while the ex MoD Long Marston site – which is now being used as a freight distribution centre – has greatly increased the HGVs crossing Clopton Bridge. One of the tasks included in the present updating exercise is a new survey of traffic in the town. It will be interesting to see how travel patterns have changed since 2003 and what impact the new housing and other developments in the town have had on traffic volumes and its distribution.