Another Road Safety Scheme was delivered to improve lane guidance and safety for traffic on the approach to A285 Portfield Way from the Sainsbury’s roundabout.

The works included:

• Installation of new and replacement road signs.
• Vegetation clearance.
• Adjustment of the carriageway line markings.

Community Highway scheme at Southwater

Southwater's Community Highway Scheme was successfully completed. Road markings, an uncontrolled pedestrian crossing, and a new footpath have been installed. The purpose of the construction was to enhance pedestrian access to Martindales and the pedestrian amenities on the northern portion of Blakes Farm Road.

Halogen Bulb Replacement Programme progress:

A three-year programme to upgrade the halogen bulbs to LED is nearly halfway through. Along with the upgrade, the traffic signals team has utilised this opportunity to address any additional upgrades required to bring the crossing locations to the latest WSCC standards. The team successfully upgraded six crossings in November. The crossing equipments had reached end of life and required replacing at the following roads:

• Franklynn Road near Princess Royal Hospital, Haywards Heath
• Tylers Green near Broad Street roundabout Road, Cuckfield
• Washington Road near Heather Way, Sullington
• Newland Road near Broadwater Road, Worthing
• North Street near Foundary Lane, Horsham
• Mulberry Lane near Mersham Gardens, Worthing

Using the latest technology, a near-sided puffin crossing has been installed, making it greener, more effective, and more efficient. In addition to tactile cones and audible bleepers to assist visually impaired pedestrians, above-ground detectors were installed to increase pedestrian safety. The detectors detect the presence of pedestrians, which affects the timings of the signals. Additionally, LED features have been added to lower energy and maintenance costs, increase driver visibility, and support the Council's Net Zero commitment by lowering carbon emissions.

Traffic Signals upgrade at Southgate Avenue in Crawley successfully complete.

Obsolete traffic lights have been replaced with new, more reliable, and energy-efficient equipment at three junctions in Crawley:

• Southgate Drive and Hawth Avenue
• Southgate Avenue’s junction with Tilgate Way
• The bus gate at the southern end of Southgate Avenue, junction with Brighton Road.

The works were completed in phases and the team successfully refurbished the sites nearly 4 weeks early. The improvement works included:

• Using LED technology to improve the traffic lights’ reliability, reduce maintenance and save energy and running costs;
• Updating the control software to give buses priority and react to vehicle movements in real time, helping traffic flow;
• Renewing all “tactile paving” on the approaches to crossings (these textured surfaces help visually impaired people identify the approaches);
• Converting crossings to the latest Puffin type: these have the “red or green man” signals on the same side of the road as the pedestrian (as opposed to the old-style, with signals across the road);
• Upgrading the Southgate Avenue/Tilgate Way crossing to a ‘Toucan’: a crossing for both pedestrians and cyclists, so “two can” cross.

Please Note: the traffic control system could take up to three months to fine-tune once the works are finished before it is running as effectively as possible.

Reconstruction of river wall completed in Chichester

Through accelerated teamwork, the river wall repair, and signals upgrade at A285 Westhampnett Road were successfully completed. The environmentally friendly "FlexMSE" soil bagwork was used to replace the wall, which was in poor condition. This will help prevent the nearby River Lavant from eroding the road. Compared to the conventional concrete bagwork system, this one offers many benefits such as:

• The FlexMSE bagwork is filled with a combination of sand/compost above water level and gravel below water level using recycled materials, with no concrete or steel reinforcement. This helps reduce our carbon use.
• This soil filled bagwork is approved for use by the Environment Agency in water courses and SSSI’s (Sites of Specific Scientific Interest). This helps reduce our impact on the surrounding environment.
• After installation the wall is hydroseeded, which involves spraying wildflower seeds and mulch onto the wall face, which covers a large area quickly and inexpensively. The hydroseeding help encourage long term biodiversity through wildflowers being established on the riverbanks.

In this last newsletter for 2024, you'll see a message from WSCC Leader Cllr Paul Marshall, our Road Safety Strategy Consultation, scheme updates, Bikeability, Drainage and more! Completed Resurfacing at Haslett Avenue East and Gatwick Road roundabout, Crawley The successful resurfacing of Haslett Avenue East with the Junction of College Road and Haslett Avenue East with the junction of Southgate Avenue has now been completed. This is in addition to the completed resurfacing works at Gatwick Road roundabout in Crawley.

Bikeability December Summary

This academic year our Bikeability Team have been out instructing in schools from 9th September and we are booked in to offer training right up until 19th December 2024!

In the first half of this academic year we have trained in excess of 2500 year 6 children at Level 1&2 Bikeability, across 72 schools. We have also carried out 4 balance bike courses to date, training over 80 reception children.

We will be back in schools again from 6th January to 18th July 2025 and are due to deliver Level 1&2 Bikeability training to a further 4600 Year 6 children in 124 schools. We will also be in 23 schools teaching the balance bike courses to 1013 Reception children.

Within the above numbers are 11 specialist SEND/SEMH/APC schools where we work closely with the staff to design a bespoke service that meets specific requirements of their students.

However, as well as offering this bespoke approach to the specialist schools, we also recognise the wide ranging support needs of children within all schools. So our training model (working with individuals and in pairs) is designed to lend itself perfectly to tailoring the sessions to the individual ability, pace and needs of each rider.

We often overstaff a little where we can to enable flexibility and capacity to offer children learn to ride / bike control improvement opportunities wherever possible.

In the last few months we have also had 12 new instructors trained and they have been shadowing experienced instructors over the last few months. Our experienced instructing team have been excellent at mentoring and supporting our new instructors, 5 of which have now successfully passed their post course observation assessment, meaning they are now fully qualified. 4 new instructors are booked in for a January assessment. And the remaining 3 will continue working with the fully qualified instructors to build up their shadowing hours and experience.