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THE SPETISBUIV kFFAIR
Page 28
Page 29
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The needs of hauliers, the fears of villagers and the apathy of the local council clash in the Dorset community of Spetisbury. More than 700 HGVs pass through the village each day, and residents await a tragedy. They and local transport companies want a bypass, but councillors appear to be indifferent. • At first, Spetisbury seems like any Dorset village, with a church, school and rows of thatched homes. But on the main street, just past the filling station, between White House cottage and the dyke, is where vicar David Pennal had to leap for his life on to the wall to miss being crushed by a 38-tonne truck.
Pennal, and most of the village's 400 or so residents, say their lives are being made miserable because Spetisbury is on the A350 Euroroute which links the growing port of Poole with Bristol and South Wales. Over 700 HGVs and thousands of cars use the village's main street each day; and most drivers, say villagers, ignore the 40mph (65km/h) speed limit. The vicar, who believes it is only a matter of time before someone is killed, is leading a campaign for a bypass around the village. Spetisbury's main street dates from a time when the occasional horse and cart was the only traffic and, though the road has been widened, there are few pavements and barely enough room for two trucks to pass.
PRIORITIES The £7 million bypass, however, is 11th on Dorset County Council's list of priorities and looks unlikely to be completed this century. It does not help that landowners who have the farms on both sides of the village refuse to yield, and the only
ternative — to build a road on top of a sused railway above the village — is iacceptable to locals.
The villagers are not alone, however, in !eking a bypass. Although many blame rry drivers, speeding to catch ferries at Dole, for much of the noise and danger, cal operators like Nigel McBay think a st route, bypassing most villages from oole and Bournemouth to the M4, is ng overdue. A new road would only be i miles (90km) long, he says.
"As a local operator, we don't want to iuse this nuisance. We want a better ed. It is not good for us and it is not )(A for the community," says McBay, ho is general manager for agricultural erchant Blandford & Webb's transport )eration, running 50 trucks. McBay's hicles pass through Spetisbury four nes a day, mostly taking limestone from e Mendips to the South Coast and inging sand back.
Other hauliers are concerned too. Winnton staged a stunt to show the madelacy of the road as a strategic Euro ute, starting one of its tankers and a dist from Avonmouth at the same time. le cyclist beat the tanker to Poole. The lure of the route to cope is made worse !cause it is mirrored by a railway that is closed in the Beecham sweep of the dies, says McBay, who has a rail link rminal in Poole.
The main reason people move out of letisbury, now a commuter village for )urnemouth and Poole, is fear of getting killed on its street, says Pennal. "Spetisbury used to be a paradise. Now you are taking your life in your hands every time you go out. To let a child on a bike is asking for trouble. You can't take a baby in a pram, I confidently predict to be taking a funeral for someone killed on the road very soon."
Although most residents regard Spetisbury's main street as a deathtrap, it is in fact straight and, in parts, reasonably wide with pavements. However, all this has drawbacks. Because the A350 twists north of the village, drivers coming south tend to speed as they enter a straight stretch. It is also a linear village, with houses on either side of the road and a raised verge and sharp drop to a river making a pathway behind the homes impracticable.
In two places, cottages stand next to the road and to get by pedestrians have to walk on the road. Thatch has been knocked off one of the cottages by trucks several times. Because the houses are historic buildings, widening the road further by knocking them down is obviously out of the question. Some residents complain that the constant flow of traffic past their front doors means their walls have begun to crack.
'frocks sometimes come through the village at the rate of several a minute, says Harry Dipple, a parish councillor and member of CAB (Campaign for A350 Bypass) which uses the slogan: "Spetisbury needs urgent by-pass surgery". The protest has been going on seriously for a year now, during which time the problem has worsened, he says. Despite constant lobbying of councillors and landowners, in a bid to make them release farm land for a bypass, he feels their campaign is falling on deaf ears.
COMMUNITY
"We often feel that, as a small community, we aren't listened to," he says. "Bournemouth has just got a new road because there are more councillors from there and they are better represented on the transport committee." So far, the campaign and the council have come up with 15 possible routes for a bypass, but he knows big farmers are not keen to cooperate.
Now Dipple and fellow campaigners plan a mock funeral through the village to highlight the danger.
The vicar was to have taken part in the event, on 25 November, but some of his parishioners advised him it might be in bad taste, The villagers plan to walk through the village with the coffin, holding up the traffic, in a bid to make the council sit up and take notice.
Gail Gomez and her husband have put their house on the market because of the danger to their baby. Gail says there is no way she would attempt to take a pushchair on to the road, although she knows of several mothers who have to walk toddlers or take children to school on foot. She intends to organise a protest march of mothers with babies through the village in the spring.
Enforcing the speed limit would not help reduce the danger, says Gomez, who used to work in the transport industry in sales. "People could not see you if they were doing lOmph, although everyone speeds. I used to do it myself before we had the baby." She says HGV traffic through the village has increased dramatically since they moved there two years ago.
There is some division in the village over the need for a bypass, and where it should go if it is built. Local farmers, and their employees, tend to be against one running through their land. Older residents and mothers with babies tend to be the worst affected, but commuters, who are away from the village all day when the traffic is at its worst, are often the most vocal.
Pennal would like to see heavy vehicles diverted away from the village along existing roads as a temporary measure, but this, says Dipple, would simply throw the problem on to other communities. He is determined that the campaign will not fall victim to the not-in-my-back-yard (NIMBY) syndrome.
Traffic on the road has increased by almost 60% since 1981, according to council figures. CAB says the number of vehicles going through the village might top 15,000 in 1997, the date mooted for work on a bypass to begin. The council admits that accidents involving HGVs are unacceptably high on the stretch of the A350 through Spetisbury from Poole to Shaftesbury — at 30, or 14%, of all accidents.
George Marsh and his wife have lived in Spetisbury 50 years, all their married life. Marsh, 70, a retired painter and decorator, fears for his wife every time she goes out, as she suffers from cataracts. Constant lorry traffic kept him awake during a recent illness, during which he had to keep the windows of the house open.
He says he can appreciate that people might think residents are only complaining because the traffic lowers their property values, but denies this is the case where he is concerned. "I'm content to spend the rest of my days in this house," he says. "I just want some peace and quiet. This was a lovely place, but now you dare hardly walk out.
"There has always been talk of a bypass, and I always thought I'd Ile to live to see it, but now I don't suppose I will. They call it progress", he says, "but is it?"
0 by Murdo Morrison