Traffic on the A444 'as is'

This is the current traffic at school times.

This is the sort of thing the Council say about the road:

Extracts from email from DCC Road Traffic Officer to County Councillor re the A444 concerns by Stanton Primary School, November 2022

“In respect of the concerns about the exit of the school grounds onto the A444, there is little we as the Highway Authority can do to rectify this situation, as we cannot alter the alignment of the road as per its current arrangement.”

“I am sure you can appreciate this scope/space is limited to achieve a considerable change in the visibility from the bend and would be at a significant cost to the authority as well.”

“I am afraid we don’t have the scope to widen the footway on the school side of the A444 Woodland Road, there is limited scope in relation to the potential conversion of the verge between the entrance to the Village Hall and the private owned field gate access, a length of approximately 39m…This subject to what services may or may not run under the verge would cost a scheme in the region of £40,000 with the necessary traffic management and design costs along with the physical works element to convert the verge to full footway construction.”

“The footway beyond the school towards the Swadlincote direction cannot be widened as we could not sacrifice the carriageway width on what is the A444 that takes HGV traffic and high volumes of vehicular traffic on daily basis. This would reduce the carriageway width to below an acceptable width that could maintain safe two-way traffic flow.”

“I have taken a look at the route and I can appreciate the footway is narrow in places along the A444, but this is constrained by the issue I have already touched on in point 1.”

“From a cycling perspective, I am aware that the current Key Cycle Network (South Derbyshire Cycleway) route ceases at Piddocks Road, there is a future proposal to extend the Key Cycle Network from this point across the land to the North-East of the A444 to the B5353 and over into the centre of Swadlincote. Unfortunately we don’t have the highway space within the A444 to accommodate a footway for example that would be shared use for pedestrians and cyclists as you need a width ideally of 3m footway, potentially reduced to 2.5m if layout constraints may be applicable. This cannot be achieved within the A444 Woodland Road.”

“I am afraid we cannot introduce horizontal traffic calming measures on an A-classified road within a location that takes high volumes of Heavy Goods traffic and close proximity to residential dwellings. In terms of vertical measures such as chicanes for example these cannot be introduced on the A444 either as we don’t have the available road width to achieve such measures”

Yes, let's invest over £3m in a school on this road without funding pathways wide enough or a crossing of any sort.