Dawlish Discussion

Yes folks, this is what DCC Highways department is proposing should happen.

All traffic wishing to leave Exeter Road from the sea side of the A379  wanting to access the Elm Grove/ Gatehouse Farm area  will have to do so via Sandy Lane and Elm Grove Drive. 

Some might welcome this proposal.  Who knows? It would be interesting to find out. P'raps someone should ask the residents of Elm Grove Drive and the users of the recreational facilities located along Sandy Lane. 

In the absence of that *!*!*!* missing link road that will be the only way into the Elm Grove/Gatehouse area (where a lot of new build housing is already in situ and where it is planned 100s more will be built).

I will post more about this later.

This no RHT from Exeter Road onto Elm Grove Road proposal has been in the air since at least 2016.

DCC Highways department say it will be needed because of the extra traffic generated by all the new homes being built up Gatehouse Farm way.

Earlier this year I contacted DCC Highways department to see if they were still of the same mind. They are. Even if the link road were to be completely in situ they (DCC Highways) would still be looking to implement this no RHT from Exeter Road onto Elm Grove Road.  With all right hand turn traffic being diverted down Sandy Lane and along Elm Grove Drive instead.

So......I do not know when this no right turn from Exeter Road onto Elm Grove Road will be implemented, but what  I do know is that as I write this it is what is planned to happen sometime in the not too distant future.

Extract from response of DCC Highways Officer in Jan of this year: 

"Analysis was undertaken for the Elm Grove Road and Sandy Lane junctions both with and without a link road. The findings of the report showed that even with the implementation of the link road the capacity at Elm Grove Road would likely just be exceeded. Therefore the recommendation is still for right turns to be banned into Elm Grove Road and for vehicle to uses Sandy Lane/ Elm Grove Drive instead."

STOP PRESS! STOP PRESS! READ THE LATEST INFO HERE

Just 15 minutes ago I received this from DCC Highway's Dept.

"We would look to monitor the situation before implementing any changes including the previously proposed “no right turn”.

As the development is built out, along with the new link road, we will be monitoring the roads in the area to see if any capacity issues arise. This would obviously include any junction capacity issues at Elm Grove Road. If any issues are identified then changes or improvement works may be required.

Any future changes will be subject to consultation with both the local member and residents."

Just in case some who know this area of town might be thinking to themselves "Well, what about opening up Carhaix Way then?" I'll just point out that DCC Highways have said they have no intention of doing so. 

For those unware of the saga of Carhaix Way it is presently bollarded off half way along so that only pedestrians and cyclists have a through route from the Exeter Road side of Carhaix Way to the Gatehouse Farm side of Carhaix way.

CW was built by two different developers at roughly the same time. But when their respective bits of Carhaix Way met up they were at two different heights!

We can only hope and pray, given it will be built at different times and by different developers, that the proposed link road twixt Gatehouse Farm area to the Sainsbury's roundabout on the A379 doesn't suffer the same fate!   

The whole thing is another DCC mess up, when the cycle path was put in along the A379 that stopped there being enough space for traffic lights at the junction of Elm Grove Road and the A379. I have always thought that in this day and age of computers that a set of three way lights with pedestrian option for all traffic at stop in all directions could be put in. That would allow the removal of the two pedestrian crossings that are both in stupid places and are dangerous to use.

The original plans for the Gatehouse / Carhaix builds was that there would be a link through but as Lynne has said that resulted in a mess up by the developers and the easy way out was to say no through route.  It is obvious to anyone with a bit of common sense that traffic coming from Exeter that wants access to Gatehouse Estate would use that route as it is shorter. Speed problems for the people that want to race along Carhaix would be speed bumps. 

Road planning in the new build areas of Dawlish leaves an awful lot to be desired, sometime ago we had a meeting with DCC highways about the pedestrian crossings at the top of the Gatehouse Estate onto Secmaton Lane junction with the end of the new link road when we found that on one of the crossings you would need to be in the middle of Secmaton Lane before you could see if any traffic was coming along from Elm Grove Road. So using that particular crossing was a potential death trap, at the site meeting we were told that most the planning for some items was done using Google Earth as the officers do not have time to go out on a site survey. 

Another example of planning going wrong is the RedRow Estate, the original plans said no vehicle access to Shutterton Lane but a walk along the lane and there is a vehicle access to the lane, still the last time I passed it it was shut off with mesh fencing but easy to remove and know doubt will be. 

It appears to me that planning decisions are made without proper regard for the whole area by officers that do not have experience of the area.

On the subject of Carhaix Way and the DA2 building sites - 'ave a read of this thread from 6 years ago almost to this very day!

https://dawlish.com/thread/details/44883

and another thread from a little earlier (October 2015) concerning the mismatch in road levels of CW and other info concerning it originally being planned to be a partial through road only, then its being supposed to be a through road Gatehouse area/Exeter Road and then back to it being, as it is now, a no through road for all vehicles.

 https://dawlish.com/thread/details/44632