A LOCAL resident has called for the town council to start a traffic consultation exercise to explore ways in which to make Alexandra Road a ‘more pleasant’ place to live by reducing the volume of vehicles that he says use the road as a ‘rat run.’
At Frome’s full town council meeting on Wednesday 21st February, the resident, Bill Lowe, complained about the volume of traffic on the road and urged the town council to start the exercise and potentially implement traffic calming measures such as planters.
“The road has essentially become a single carriageway road [due to] on-street parking by residents,” he explained. “[There is] conflict where cars literally drive towards each other, no-one gives way and it is getting worse as a result of various developments that have happened in Frome. It will no doubt get worse as and when Saxonvale gets developed.
“The answer to this is fairly simple, to put a planter at the bottom of Alexandra Road at the junction with Portway. [This] would make the junction that is proposed for Saxonvale work much better and hopefully preserve the Post Office. [I also suggest introducing] a planter at the bottom of the Summer Hill junction so that cars can only move one-way from south to north along that northern section of Alexandra Road.”
“It would ultimately help in achieving what I would regard as a low traffic neighbourhood for the area and make the street a much more pleasant place in which to live.”
At the meeting, the clerk of the council, Paul Wynne, said that because the item was not on the agenda, no decisions could be made at the time. However, ward councillor Lisa Merryweather, has been assigned to liaise with Bill Lowe on the issue and is supporting him to make a request to Somerset Council who are responsible for the road.
