Viaduct Road – working for improvements via partnership working?

2014 June – where did we begin?

Residents have asked that we give attention to improvements on Viaduct Road. For visitors coming down the A23 this road forms part of the visual “welcome” to Brighton, and as such it is sadly under-performing.

Let’s see what can be done!

 

The current situation:

Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) tend to present issues in terms of the tenant’s commitment to long-term upkeep and enhancement of appearance.

The stats from the Council’s register of HMOS says:

Registered HMOS

5 10 11 17 20 21 22 23 24 29 31 34 35 36a 37 40 41 42 44 45 46 47 48 49-Top Mais 50 51 52 54 55 56 58 60 63 64 66 70 71 

=37 properties

NOT HMOS

1 2 3 4 6 7 8 9 12 13 14 15 16 18 19 25 26 27 28 30 32 33 38 39 43 53 57 59 61 62 65 67 68 69

= 34 houses

 

Here are details of ownership and Person Managing – thanks to Elspeth for collating all this information (May 2016)

 

Since then we have followed up the situation via the various agencies who can be involved

University Accommodation Offices have been most helpful – via Charles Dudley and Andy Keeffe

City Clean have made the road a focus of action

Letting Agents – have repeatedly ignored all our contact, giving no answer to emails, and neither coming to meetings when invited, nor sending apologies –  with the honourable exception of Pavilion and Kendrick.

Planning Enforcement – have begun an enforcement excercise in requesting landlords to improve the appearance of their properties.

HMO licensing have been in contact, but this is yet to be followed up.

Road Safety Team have begun a trial period of traffic calming – unfortunately invoking much hostile comment in the press, which seems unreasonable given that Viaduct Road is clearly a residential area which was being used by many motorists as a racetrack.

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2015 – January The update is here

2015 – March

Viaduct Road Traffic – update and reactions

March 25, 2015

During 2014 we had repeated complaints from residents about the unfriendly and unsafe condition of Viaduct Road – detailed elsewhere on the website.

As part of this we had been looking at measures to calm the traffic , which, so we were told, sometimes reached 50mph on a residential street some 400m in length. Over three meetings, December, January and February 2015 we considered various option and possibilities. We were told that money was going to be tight – but that the Council would try to do what it could to help the residents.

True to their word the Council team re-cycled some planters to produce ad-hoc traffic calming. The adverse reaction was intense – from coverage in local media even up to (?) the Daily Mail.

You can read the adverse responses at your leisure, and for the sake of balance there is also a radically opposing view expressed here.

Feedback on measured speeds indicate that average speed has decreased from in excess of 30mph to something slightly over 20mph.

Hopefully, when things have calmed down, we can move forward with sensible long-term improvements which produce responsible traffic speeds, no loss of overall vehicle throughput, and a safer-feeling, more human residential road for visitors and residents alike.

2016 – May: Prettifying the Planters

Thanks to Elspeth and team who went out and replanted the planters with new vegetation on 21st May 2016

2016- June: A clean-up day is proposed for June 29th 12.00 by kindness of University of Sussex volunteers – partnering with City Clean.