Surrey Council will proceed with a trial of a left-turn only from Seven Hills Road North onto the A245 in Cobham, but have decided to pause a decision on a new pedestrian crossing.

Petition to Stop the Closure of the Right Turn at the Bottom of 7 Hills Road in Cobham

The meeting was to consider a petition signed by 829 people calling on the council to allow traffic to continue turning right from Seven Hills Road North onto the A245 after work is completed on the nearby M25 Junction 10.

Julia Lindon-Travers, who started the petition, spoke at the meeting. She said that the changes to the junction were not consulted on and that she had to be guided to the relevant documents on page 24 of 70 of the consultation material on the Highways England website. She also said that local councillors were told it was happening but there was nothing they could do about it .

Ms Lindon-Travers went on to argue that the right turn ban would mean that £600,000 of taxpayers’ money is potentially going to be wasted on a pedestrian crossing that would no longer be needed. This was because the crossing was intended to link with a cycle path on Seven Hills Road that is not and never will be up to scratch because the pavement just isn’t wide enough .

She said that the new junction layout would force traffic to use the Painshill roundabout, no doubt having to change lanes multiple times which she argued will not improve safety . She also argued that the council's traffic modelling was “not realistic”.

David Hodge, the council’s Executive Director for Economy, Place & Environment, responded to the petition. He argued that:

The need for the left turn only at Seven Hills Road came out with the results of the National Highways M25 Junction 10 project. There were three reasons actually for one being the crossing to add the capacity in. But the overriding reasons were around National Highways has an existing issue with traffic queuing onto the A3 main line. The National Highways scheme was looking to move that traffic and reallocate that onto the county’s network. So, there was a concern there in terms of safety and queuing of that traffic coming into those signals.

He went on to say that the decision about whether or not to proceed with the right turn ban ultimately rested with the Secretary of State for Transport, Mark Harper, and that he had written to the Secretary of State to ask him to amend the Development Consent Order for the scheme to allow the right turn to be retained.

Councillor Oliver, who represents the Cobham division, said he had cycled along Seven Hills Road and I have to say I do not think that it is a satisfactory cycle path .

I did point out paragraph 4.8 of the active travel England route check user manual which does say that in general shared use facilities in streets with high pedestrian or cyclist flow should not be used and in urban areas the conversion of a footway to shared use should be regarded as a last resort.

Jonathan Wade, from National Highways, then spoke. He said that whilst he had secured the funding for the crossing and that his team were close to completing a detailed design for it, he was not precious about it. He said that if it were to be deleted from the scope it actually makes things more straightforward to us .

Matt Furniss, the Cabinet Member for Highways, Transport and Economic Growth, then made the decision to proceed with a trial of the left-turn only from Seven Hills Road North, but to pause the pedestrian crossing scheme.

I think if we can proceed then with the the left turn only on a on a trial basis I think we’ll have a look at how it impacts on the network. I think in your recent meeting Jonathan with Tim and Julia you said this is at the very last point that you would be looking to install this of the Junction 10 program so it would be the end of 2024 is that right?... and then I think if we if we pause on the pedestrian cycle crossing in particular I mean there’s no point in installing something if we decide to take eventually if we if we do there is the option to to remove the the ban on the right-hand turn there’s no point in having a crossing in there which would also have to be removed at the same time so if you’re happy to pause on that or at least pause installation I’m sure you might want to complete the design work in the event that it might be needed in the future but if everyone’s happy with that we can we’ll proceed on the trial basis and then we’ll leave the crossing out for the moment.

Mr Wade said that National Highways obtained designated funds for the crossing and that it is not part of the main scheme . This means that if the crossing goes there’s no option for it to come back again in a couple of months time...so so once it’s gone that’s it .

Councillor Furniss said I’m sure we can help you if they can stay locally with with another scheme I’m sure David’s already got something a bite but that’d be great .

The meeting concluded at 11:13 am.