On the 25/03/2022 Carley Sitwell sent data she had collected from traffic counts she made on the northern Westgate pavement.

Carley collected tremendously useful data that shows pedestrian flows regularly exceed the 300 people per hour maximum considered acceptable for shared use cycle-ways by DfT LTN1/20 guidelines for cycle infrastructure design (paragraph 6.5.7)

As student leave Bishop Luffa school in the afternoon, there are high flows or pedestrians, often exceeding 350 people per hour.

Over the hour period MONDAY March 21st between 2:15pm and 3:15pm Carley counted 341 pedestrians!

Over the hour period THURSDAY March 24th between 2:15pm and 3:15pm Carley counted 396 pedestrians!

It looked like Tuesday hourly figure would have also been over 300 pedestrians too had Carley continued counting for 15 or 30 minutes.

The widths and geometry LTN1/20 recommendations (that the current WHF plans fail to comply with) only apply where hourly pedestrian flows are less than 300 pedestrians per hour.

Steven Shaw (team manager for West Sussex Highways) even relied on CD143 standard for rural A roads and Motorways, only valid with hourly pedestrian footfall of less than 200 people per hour! Steven Shaw had clearly not done his homework properly and you’ve excellently highlighted his poor judgment in rubber stamping this extremely poor quality scheme.

My guess is school kids are being dropped off by car in the morning when parents are driving to work but they are walking back home themselves in the early afternoon.

Claiming kids can cycle home on the pavement is ludicrous with such extreme pedestrian flows on shared pavements falling far below DfT standards for infrastructure designed for maximum flows below 300 pedestrians an hour.

With an additional 1600 homes, it seems reasonable to conclude pedestrian footfall will increase and we have now a robust argument that the proposed infrastructure is entirely inadequate even for existing pedestrian and cycle usage.

Thanks so much for dong this valuable research work Carley

Mark