Over the last few years the Parish Council has undertaken a program of addressing resident’s concerns regarding speeding. To this end we worked with Lancashire County Council (LCC) and identified seven locations for the placement of a Speed Indicator Sign (SPID).
Consequently, the Parish Council purchased a moveable, battery powered sign and LCC put up six brackets for us. We move the sign round and swap the battery over every 10 days or so. The statistics from the sign show that they do slow drivers down and the average speed has fallen as a result. It’s not perfect but it’s something.
The seventh location is on the bridge on Delf Lane near the Kings Arms, but LCC won’t allow us to have such a sign in that location due to safety concerns, and the volume of traffic would drain the batteries in a few hours.
There is however, an unused sign post poll, with an electricity supply, just over the bridge. So how about using that supply…
1. Apply for permission to erect a permanent electric sign.
2. Find out the power consumption of the sign, per activation.
3. Find out from LCC that the average number of activations (i.e. vehicles speeding) is 3000 per day!
4. Work with LCC engineers to establish verified unmetered power consumption (a few pounds a year)
5. Apply to SP Energy for a supply number with unmetered supply data.
6. Try and get the hedge cut back sufficiently to expose the hidden sign post.
7. Find an energy supplier… No one wants such a small supply contract.
8. Repeat step 6 and 7 until all will to live is lost.
Update
Turns out there are Steps 9, 10, 11 and 12 involving electricians, cables and hedges (again)……
So after 300 emails and 2 years….
