Congestion buster

In fact, forget well-being. What is at stake here is nothing less than Colchester's economic future.

Nearly 30 years ago civil engineers told Colchester Council that unless councillors looked "seriously" at curbing the amount of traffic which came through the town centre, they would create a problem which would just get bigger and bigger.

It did get bigger. Today, it isn't only the town centre which is gridlocked, but, at the times which matter, the Avenue of Rembrance, Cowdray Avenue, Ipswich Road, Southway, Brook Street, Greenstead roundabout, and Clingoe Hill.

With the town's population increasing by almost a third in those 30 years - 155,000 and, thanks to the new house boom, rising - that means more cars, more lorries delivering to more supermarkets and more traffic jams.

And no one seems to have done anything about it.

During those 30 years Colchester Council tinkered. But making sure it got the county council and the car-loving voters on its side - not to mention avoiding falling foul of forever-changing Government policy - has meant the tinkering was minimal.

Now the county council in its role as the highways authority will spend £10 million on "experts" and computer programmes to sort out the traffic jams in the county's town centres.

Top of the list is Colchester - and you can almost hear its councillors breathing a collective sigh of relief.

Council leader Robert Davidson is right behind the "experts"; so, too, is Brian Jarvis, in charge of planning and regeneration. He could not be more blunt.

"The traffic problem in Colchester is growing," he declared, "and we have to confront it.

"This kind of thing (by the county council) needs to be done and it can only be done over a period of time."

In other words, it isn't going to happen overnight. It will take time.

But Colchester is running out of time. As the Gazette has shown over the past two weeks, those who could have made a difference to Colchester gridlock have dithered.

Result? The town is, yet again, waiting for more consultants to come up with more solutions just as it did in the early 1980s and 1998.

But there are those who think the council is going about this all wrong. What it should be doing is persuading people to leave their cars at home and use buses to get in and out of Colchester. This, said Paula Whitney, of the Colchester branch of Friends of the Earth, is where the council is going wrong.

As far as her group is concerned, Colchester Council's focus has not been on public transport. Had it been, the town would not be in the gridlock "mess" it is now.

The same could be said about park-and-ride. This idea - where motorists can leave their cars in car parks on the edge of Colchester and come into the town centre by bus - was first put forward as a going concern a decade ago.

Since then, nothing has really stirred. The one park-and-ride scheme which did get off the ground - the £25,000 a year, Saturdays only from Colchester's North Station - is about to be axed.

There is no doubt it is underused, but being in the wrong place and having higher-than-town-centre car parking charges haven't much helped.

Despite the North Station hiccup, many Colchester councillors are getting right behind park-and-ride.

But is that the way forward, will it really ease congestion in and around the town centre - and has it been thought through?

It failed at Eight Ash Green. Residents of this village west of Colchester were in no mood to have hundreds of cars daily passing their doorsteps and the idea was eventually dropped.

Now there is talk of a park-and-ride scheme off Spring Lane near the Avenue of Remembrance plus what really could be the town's "full-time" park-and-ride scheme at Colchester's new community stadium.

But those you think would be in favour are hesitant. Michael Allen, chairman of the Colchester Bus Users' Group, pointed out that the group's first priority is to ensure we all have access to bus services.

"On the face of it park-and-ride appears to be a good thing, especially as it means getting people out of cars and into buses," he said.

"But bus services and park-and-ride are not the same thing, and bus services, especially those serving rural communites, could become under threat if park-and-ride encourages people into their cars and away from those services."

Ms Whitney also has a problem with park-and-ride.

"It would be simpler, cheaper and better for the environment if people just got the bus from where they actually lived," she insisted.

But it would be easier to entice with park-and-ride. Currently, Chelmsford has the only fully-fledged park-and-ride scheme in Essex. For whichever reason, the county council has appeared unenthusiastic about park-and-ride, but seems to be on board for the one at Colchester's community stadium - even though there is still the problem of access onto the A12.

It would be responsible for setting up the service, and stand much of the cost with Colchester Council stumping up £200,000.

This is where the seven men and one woman come in. They are Colchester Council's cabinet and their recommendations usually count.

It's down to them whether or not Colchester gets its first park-and-ride scheme - and the beginning of the end of gridlock.