Never mind the width, feel the volume!

DCC Highways rejects Lib Dem petition to ban HGVs on residential road

Over a year after the petition was received by Derbyshire County Council, the request to ban vehicles over 7.5 tonnes from parts of Mayfield Road and Church Street Ashbourne (except for access) has been rejected by Conservative Cllr Athwal, the Cabinet Member for Highways, Assets and Transport. See here and here for more details.
The report that was prepared to inform his decision appears to have looked at the numbers of HGVs using these residential roads as a short cut as well as the number who signed the petition.
The data shows that on average over 200 HGVs use Mayfield Road and Church Street each day compared with over 1000 using the 'correct' A road, the A515, that runs along Clifton Road.
The argument by the County Highways officers appears to rely on the fact that any HGVs displaced from Mayfield Road and Church Street would end up on Clifton Road.

This was never disputed, after all Clifton Road is wider, and has fewer houses which are mostly set further back from the traffic.

The logical conclusion of this ruling is that DCC Highways approve allowing HGVs to use smaller unclassified roads because this will remove HGVs from the 'A' roads!
They really do need to think through their decisions more carefully.

It is also curious that they regard the fact that 40% of the homes on Mayfield Road and Church Street signed the petition as indicating that 60% were in favour of the HGVs.
The two Conservative County Councillors - Cllr Bull and Cllr Spencer - did not support the ban. Perhaps they should carry out a survey seeing how many of the residents of those two roads are in favour of HGVs using the road just outside their front door. I don't think it will be many.