A RENEWED plea has been made for town councillors to take a central role in campaigning on traffic issues in Barnard Castle after a year of inactivity.
At the 2020 annual town meeting, Ros Evans, a member of the Barnard Castle HGV Group, asked the town council to bring interested parties together to discuss the damage being caused to the town’s historic structures by wagons, along with other issues.
At last week’s town council meeting, clerk Martin Clark conceded the council had not brought anyone together to discuss the traffic situation.
However, he said it was a topic that will be brought forward after the local elections in May.
Ms Evans, who attended the meeting, said: “I would really like to press the town council to take this on and bring people together who have this interest at heart and have some proper discussions about it.”
She suggested the town council could take the lead on issues such as monitoring the number of vehicles breaching the weight limit and crossing the County Bridge illegally.
Ms Evans’ comments came during a discussion on the first meeting of the A66 community liaison group, when it was reported that both town council representatives – Cllrs Laura Drew and Belinda Thompson – had since resigned.
As a result, Mr Clark said either he or Claire Atkinson, the council’s finance officer, could attend future meetings on an interim basis to ensure the town council was represented on the group.
In a report submitted prior to their resignation, Cllrs Drew and Thompson said at the first liaison group meeting, concerns had been raised about the traffic modelling used by Highways England when drawing up proposal related to the dualling of the A66.
“They will be looking at this data again,” they said.
Their report added: “Concerns were also expressed about the inadequacies of the routes from the A66 into Barnard Castle, especially around the Abbey Bridge, from the Rokeby junction, and the Sills, from the Cross Lanes junction. These routes are the responsibility of Durham County Council and it was agreed that representatives from Durham be invited to join the group to add their input.”
Councillors agreed to note the information and that officers should attend the next meeting of the liaison group.
