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'YOUR WORDS' (more to come)

NEW!

 

Lesley Quintana

… I am an NHS worker and use the Bridge to get to work on a Monday and Wednesday. In order to save money, petrol and therefore with my green head on the journey to work will be quicker for me. I start working at 8.00 am so really need to be across town at Chesterton Medical Centre by 7.45 am. Although I cycle when I can I have an NHS laptop and phone. I do have a waterproofs but don’t want to get into work damp..

 

Charmaine Wilson
The closure will impact me getting to and from work, leaving me with one option to take home, east road, Newmarket Road, which normally is grid locked all the way back to tennison Rd. I regularly.  I also pick up volu tears for my shop along that route and when it is closed will have to pick up one side of the bridge and go back round to the other side, which will cause more pollution.

 

Jo Pilsworth

I usually park my EV at Gwydir Street. However, mobility issues would dissuade me from venturing over the bridge on foot. I will likely stick to the Parkside end of Mill Road.

 

Claudio Dagostin

I feel that the closure of Mill road bridge would be absolutely damaging my private life as I often drive on Mill Road to go to various shops after my Sainsbury’s shopping (which I do by car). The shops are usually Arjuna and Mill road butchers on the west side of the bridge which I can easily reach in 2 minutes from Perne road and parking in the car park near the bridge.

Closing the bridge means I will have to make a huge diversion to get to those shops which means I will probably decide not to go there anymore.

I feel that many people and shops will suffer from this non-sense decision for just the sake of diminishing a traffic which is currently perfectly sustainable.

I live in trumpington and often come to mill road Parker's piece site after shopping at Sainsbury's. I will need to make a huge diversion through Newmarket road and East road to get to Arjuna increasing both traffic and pollution. Probably I will just give up my specific shopping there as before the closure is taking me 2 minutes from perne road to get there. This will affect those businesses obviously.

 

Susie Williams

"Mill Road is the most direct route for me to the town centre.  If the bridge closes there will actually be more pollution, but just on different roads.      My main objection to this possible imminent closure is that I believe the shops on Mill Road will suffer because of a drop in customers.      The shop where I volunteer, Sally Ann's, will probably face an immediate drop in donations as it will be easier to drop them elsewhere. No work should start on this until the court decision. "

 

Sheridan James

Why would the council spend my tax money AND inconvenience me  unneccesarily if there is even a chance that  the court will rule against them? The longer I don't have to suffer an endless stream of displaced Mill Rd traffic sitting outside my home on Cromwell Rd, waiting for the congestion producing lights to change, the absolute better.

 

Yvonne Dias

I am writing on behalf of friends living on Kingston Street. They are an older couple and he needs to go to Addenbrooks on a regular basis. Although he cycles, it is too difficult for him to do so and so they take the car. Closing the bridge will mean that the couple will need to do a few miles extra miles journey which will mean extra fuel used and also displaced traffic…causing more pollution in other areas.

Also he has a workshop just across the bridge. He needs his car to haul his tools across. If the bridge is closed for cars, he will need to go a couple of miles out of his way when the journey is only a 5 minute ride across the bridge!

 

 

Mandy Squires

If my elderly father who lives at Ditchburn place, has a drs or hospital appointment that he needs to be taken to I would have to drive from my home on the other side of the bridge all the way round via hills road or Coldhams lane to pick him up, go where we need to go take him back home then drive all the way back, adding either 2x £65 fines or another 4 or five mile journey, rather than a quick 3 min drive over the bridge, so in my opinion closing the bridge is going to hit the families of the infirm, and that is just not fair

We would have been ok if, as was stated in the original case for closing it, people with blue badges would have been able to nominate 2 cars to use the bridge, but now the holders need to be in the car that's getting the closure through under false pretences !!!!

 

Clare Collinson

My son is going to Parkside in September I live in Romsey. If I ever need to drive him to school I have to go the long way round. This causing more pollution down  coldhams  lane.  I also do some agency work in toft. Again with the bridge closed it means that I have an extra 20-25 minutes added onto my journey by having to drive down Coleridge road and brooklands avenue. Rather than just drive over the bridge. Utter madness!

 

Dominique Leighton

I used to live at the far end of Mill Road.

I have friends running the Blue Sage Café after the bridge. Their business suffered a lot during the first closure so I'm sure other businesses have too. So what will happen to all these hard-working people?

I can't see how cutting road access, therefore having to go all the way around town and spending more time for journeys, is helping cutting emissions and pollution.

Surely a 10mn journey is better than a 20 or 25 mn around town one.

Not everyone can walk, bike everywhere and I've given up on buses.

 

Maja Majaa

That will make other roads in traffic so much more than it is now with all road works on all sides of town.Also using other roads and going around will close even more traffic.

Businesses will go down and might even shut. What a zombie town this is all coming to ...

 

James Nadin

I'll have to drive the long way round via Tenison Road, Station Road, Hills Road, Cherry Hinton Rd and Coleridge Road - creating more traffic and pollution and increasing the risk to other road users - just to go shopping, get my car serviced, fill up, go to evening classes, dentist, physio etc. It will be a pointless waste of time and fuel since I'll still be driving around the Romsey side of Mill Road, just not across the bridge.

 

Nick Tiley

It will simply cause unnecessary pollution and congestion (causing more pollution) as local residents taking car journeys will have to travel and extra 2 miles each time. Surely the council has a duty to reduce pollution, not increase it?

 

AC Fernandes

I can also do that, i work as self employed having a cleaning business and doing services for offices, charity,.pub and private houses on the other side (petersfield) as i live on romsey area its a hassle to me. With this i don’t even know when im supposed to give notice to clients and i will lose a lot of income monthly

 

Azam
As a estate agent it will be really difficult for my clients and workers to travel to both side of the bridge if its shut before the court decision as my Contracter will increase the cost of travel. My cleanner already mention me she will struggle to travel long journey as she need to finish work before her daughter finish school.

 

Joanna Woods

As a mill road resident the response to the bridge reopening makes me feel very sad and unvalued by some of the traders. I walk and cycle regularly and make an effort to shop along mill road rather than online. I do think if as much effort and energy was put into engaging  with local residents and promoting  shopping locally as has been arguing about the bridge locally it might be more worth while. I sometimes I feel like they actually don't want me to shop with them.

 

Clare Collinson

it was horrible last time. It felt like buses were coming towards you. The cars came up closer to you when you were cycling it felt so much more dangerous ironically enough. Also anything that has a negative impact on local businesses is not great when heating and bills are going up so much. As much footfall is needed as possible. The post office on Vinery road has been effected so badly by Vinery road stopped being a through road. It’s killing their business:(!

 

Diana Smith

Mill Road bridge closure has bought Coldhams Lane to a standstill. It’s heaving with traffic every single day. It’s affecting all surrounding roads. And now there is talk of doing the same to Coldhams Lane?  How can any of this be right?

 

Sally Summer

Perne road and brooks road have been a nightmare to get along, since the closure of Vinery road. Sainsbury’s roundabout at peak times is chaos and dangerous, every vehicle and bike for your self, accident waiting to happen.

Closing mill rd bridge is only going to add to the traffic on these roads.

The council clearly took no notice of the people’s/ residents/ businesses views, it makes me extremely worried about the CONgestion charge, as they clearly do what they want and not what the majority of the residents of the city want.

 

Khalid Malik

It's in Sane to Close the Mill Road Bridge

It doesn't make Any Sense At All If the Bridge is Closed the Traffic will need to go All the way to cherryhinton Road and Hills Road and get Stuck in traffic Produce too much fumes and Get No Where.

Is this suppose to be Progress???

Lets think Again before we make the Same Mistake again of Closing the Mill Road Bridge and Mess things up Again

Thank you

 

Jerry 1234567 wrote:

How many months ahead of this decision could the proponents have checked this out?

 

Sorry, but it does undermine the case for closure if professional carers have to keep going the long way round. A bunch of amateurs cobbled this together.

 

They don't even have any way to check whether the disabled person is actually in the vehicle, unless they stick a Stasi type checkpoint at the bridge... thankfully not!

 

After all the fuss about disabled access being the reason the bridge got reopened after closure in lockdown, one would think that these people would have paid attention to the finer details.

 

He admitted that the rule would be difficult to police, given the ANPR cameras do not check who is travelling in a vehicle.

For the first 28 days after the scheme goes live, drivers who are not exempt will be sent a warning notice but no fine for the first time they breach the restriction.

Once the warning period comes to an end, drivers who breach the restriction may receive a penalty charge notice of £70, discounted to £35 if paid within 14 days.

 

From Camb Ind 7 March 2023

Cllr Bird said she still had some concerns about the plans, explaining that she believed further exemptions were needed for carers, and for people with disabilities who do not qualify for a blue badge. Cllr Bird said the authority also needed to consider nighttime safety, highlighting that concerns had been raised last time the bridge was closed by young women who said they were frightened due to the road being so quiet.

She also said people needed to be able to apply for the exemptions in other ways, rather than just online. It was clarified at the meeting that a phone number was also proposed to be made available for people. Councillor Neil Shailer (Labour) said the authority would continue to monitor the impact of the restrictions and could “evolve” the plans.

 

Richard Uglow

I wish to log an objection to the TRO on mill road bridge as this will kill off businesses in the area on mill road as you can no longer access them when needed from one side of mill road. This means you'll have to go a much longer way around to get there and this is not good at all for access to businesses on this road that have been there for the last 50 or 100 years and many are independent stores that should be supported and barriers should not be put in place to accessing them. Footfall in the stores will go down they will lose money and ultimately some businesses will be forced to close.

 

Sheila Gresham

Thank you for keeping us informed Neil. The bit about customers going by bike reminded me - I was talking to someone the other day about the difficulty delivering furniture from my shop when Mill Road Bridge is closed. The response was -" it is possible to use a bike with a trailer to deliver chest of drawers." Seriously- i can't lift a chest of drawers into a bike trailer let alone cycle over the bridge towing something that heavy!! I struggle to cycle over the bridge without being dragged backwards by a heavy weight. Plus in the rain? In sunny weather? The furniture would get damaged. Cloud cuckoo land

 

S. J. Hunt    28/8/23

I’m nearly 73 years of age. Paid taxes (still paying now) all of my life. I do not want to be a recluse in my own home. I live 12 miles away (from Mill Road) and using the car gives me freedom and independence. As a single man this is very important to my mental health and well-being.

 

 

Jill Allen

I won't be fined because I abide by the law but I will be inconvenienced by not being able to use a route I use at present and I will be inconvenienced by the traffic being rerouted and passing by the end of my road and adding to congestion caused solely by the rerouting.

 

Mark Smith

On top of their £10 a day charge for me just to use my van for work, This could have a massive effect if I had no other choice but to use it..£115 in a week just for work..That has to be paid for somewhere down the line...All these charges are going to seriously affect just about everyone in this doomed city

 

Di Brown

I am a dog walker & I don't earn much more than minimum wage. Closing MR bridge means I will have to alter my route, meaning I work longer & use more petrol. I love my job & it's really good for my mental health. Having driven down Mill Rd a fair amount I've noticed that the number of cars has decreased but the amount of e-scooters, e-bikes, normal bikes & pedestrians who don't seem to know or follow the rules of the road is frightening.

 

Simon Tompkins

I will boycott one half of Mill Road

 

Lisa Kantar

As a small family gardening business this will impact us adding time onto our day travelling from one job to the other. We have customers that live just off mill road we will have to go all round coldham lane, Newmarket road , east road into mill road ! at the moment we do perne road mill road ! added millage and added roads to our journey! Madness If there was a real reason to why it should be closed I would try and understand !

 

Sheila Gresham

Travelling to and from work will take longer and cause congestion on other routes. My job involves delivering furniture. It will again take me longer and further to do so.

 

David Blackwell

We will, unfortunately, be seriously thinking twice about getting a lot of our stock from businesses both sides of the bridge.

 

Bernie Constable

I am a community nurse, my office is near Mill Road Broadway. I need to use the bridge frequently to see patients. Closing it will mean longer journey times=less patients per day, pushing more traffic onto other often busy roads: Coldhams Lane, Hills Rd and Trumpington Rd.

It’s been built to enable traffic to move effectively around the city…what on earth is going on?!!

 

John Ball, Cut Price Carpets
Having a business on mill rd for 28 years serving the local community, having the bridge closed until a court date will have a major impact on our business, as our potential customers will not no what’s going on IE , is it close , is it open it will just stop people coming down mill rd all together, please please keep it open my family’s livelihood Relies on the passing traffic that comes past our shop and the deliveries of our very heavy items , and also our deliveries to our shop and if the bridge do close they have said that they will have to stop delivery to our shop as there is no way for a lorry to turn around safely without a flag man

 

Shane Germany

I live on coldhams lane and so will see a direct increase of the traffic for what? Nothing, the bridge has been open for as long as I’ve lived and so no reason for it to change, except for some selfish people. Loads of businesses, people use the road, bridge for a many good reason and closing it will cause more pollution, traffic and financial cost to all who live in Cambridge.

 

Ony Henderson

Winter Glennon, any congestion on Mill Rd is only at rush hour or if Hills Rd is blocked by something. It's nothing like as busy as it was 40 years ago, and, since then, vehicles have become far cleaner.

It's not difficult to cross when it's quiet, and, when it's busy, it's easy enough to get to an official pedestrian / zebra crossing.

It got closed when the bridge was being adjusted for the works on the railway a year before the lockdown and then the people who were keen on that rejoiced at the obstacle course put in to keep us all safe from Covid.

Now these same people seem to want us all to pack into a bus to get into town for shopping, and share our germs .....

Or, if driving, go bumpity bump along the side streets which have been designed to slow progress. Increasing traffic along these is not great for people living there - noisy and more congested. The residents shouldn't have to cope with this situation or "mitigate" it, as you put it.

Mill Rd was designed for ACCESS and FLOW.

Flow is better for the environment.

I cycle or walk too .... but carrying heavy equipment / shopping I need to use my car and it makes sense to take the shortest route.

 

Jenny Nelder

I live in chesterton. Every day I juggle looking after my kids, working a demanding job, checking on my parents to help with their daily care (which is often a last-minute cry for help, or a trip to the hospital/ doctors, so I sometimes have to do the journey 2 or 3 times a day). I now need a hip replacement too. The closure of Mill road bridge (for any reason) has an massively negative impact on my daily life and mental health. I can't cycle to take my parents to their medical appointments (I'm struggling to cycle at all at the moment). The bridge closure means more traffic on other roads and now they have the idiotic wands on East road that road is a nightmare (as the main route from chesterton to Mill road). Someone in charge of the bridge closure should walk a mile in my shoes (spend a month being me) before they judge what is reasonable and necessary. It's so sad. So unnecessary.

 

Neil Mackay

As far as I am concerned the very name of the road gives a clue to why it should remain open for ever.

MILL ROAD indicates that it  is and always has been a 'conduit of trade'. It is one of the main arteries of business in the city and therefore simply cannot be closed.

I was part of a team that made their previous incarnation’The City Deal’ so toxic that they had to go through an expensive rebranding exercise to come up with ‘The Greater Cambridge Partnership’. In 2016 they actually tried to persuade us that a scheme where they planned to close 6 main roads to through traffic at ‘PEAK TIMES!!’ Controlled by number recognition cameras, would be a good idea.

 

I recall attend a meeting of business owners where the designer of the scheme laid out her grand plan.

My son was first on his feet at the end of the presentation and asked her “you are about to shut off about 30% of our footfall, how do you expect us to remain in business?” The response he received left the room full of business owners falling off their chairs with laughter.

“CAN’T YOUR CUSTOMERS COME ON BIKES?”

I invited the lady and Lewis Herbert to visit my business in order to demonstrate the type of products we sell and the logistical nightmare the plan would bring. When we entered the metals warehouse she exclaimed “Oh!!That is what you mean by Steel!!”

This time around I put the same issues to the grandly named (they all love a title) ‘Growth and Strategy Manager’ and she exercised some of that blue skies thinking and suggested “CAN’T YOU PERSUADE YOUR SUPPLIERS TO DELIVER AT THE WEEKEND?”

What planet do they recruit these people from?

 

Oh well if you have £500,000,000 of taxpayers money to play with what does it matter spending a few £million on rebranding? I wonder what the next ‘Doctor Who’ style‘Reincarnation’ will be called, for there most surely will be one!!

Any suggestions for new acronyms please add in the comments below. We can send them to Elisa to save a few bob on consultants fees. Neil Mackay

Managing director

Mackays of Cambridge Ltd

 

 

Jo Pilsworth

Following surgery on my knees, walking has been somewhat problematic. Due to being autistic, I prefer to stay in my car, rather than run the risk of crowds of people setting off anxiety and a meltdown. I had a blue badge, but due to an administrative error by the County Council, my renewal is stuck in the system. I can’t apply for an exemption until I have my new badge, having had this stated to me in an email recently.

 

Usually, I park in Gwydir Street, and yes, the new EV chargers will be very helpful. However, I will not be able to shop at Sainsbury’s, and then continue to Mill Road for specialist ingredients when the bridge closes. Given that it has taken the County’s officers eight weeks to FIND my renewal, I am not holding out hopes of my exemption coming through promptly.

 

Now, I will need to shop at Sainsbury’s, and then drive down Newmarket Road, onto East Road, and then into Mill Road, since it is likely that Coldhams Lane bridge will also become restricted.

 

My options are to Park at Queen Anne car park, to access a few shops at the top end of Mill Road, and then move my car to Gwydir Street to continue my shopping. I will then need to repeat the loop of East Road and Newmarket Road if I wish to go to any shops on the Romsey side of the bridge, rather than, for example, being able to drive to those shops. Relevant Records, or the Romsey Mill Charity shop will lose customers, like me, are unable to drive around in circles one loose of Newmarket Road/East Road, and then having to do it again because chances are I have forgotten something? Very unlikely to happen. Perish the thought that I might want to use a cycle shop other than CamCycle’s own shop. My ebike is too heavy if it needs repairs to transport it with anything other than a car. Of course, if the trustees of Camcycle are trying to tip the scales in favour of their shop, it would explain why they support the bridge closure. Does that mean, the City Council are interfering in fair trade?

 

On a final note, I would add that access to eateries such as Tradizione would become more difficult. The very variety of Mill Road is threatened by this closure. As a person with hidden disabilities, this closure discriminates against my wish to be able to shop and move freely around Cambridge.

 

I changed to an EV to ‘do my bit’ about the alleged pollution in town. Clearly, that is not enough for the coffin-bike fanatics.

 

Elizabeth Buie

As a resident of Romsey, I can say that it will make things more difficult for tradespeople and delivery drivers coming to my area. I was having a major home renovation done during 2020 (started shortly before lockdown), and the bridge closure greatly inconvenienced the workers and delivery folks. Several times I had to talk drivers through the alternative route to my house, because their satnav knew the bridge was closed but it didn't know about the barriers at Brampton Road. They had to go all the way to Sainsbury's and down Brooks Road to the end of Mill Road, then back towards town. Time wasted and greater pollution created.

 

Victoria Randall

It will mean I can book less grooms in and produce less money from my business which drives prices up. The surrounding roads will be busier so not a quick 1.5 mile run to get 100 feet down the road. It will mean 1.5 miles of heavier traffic.

I will not be anywhere near the only business it effects. Honestly I wish I knew which individuals are pro closing so I can just put their prices up to cover the expense. Unfortunately it will have to be shared between everyone at a time when everything is unaffordable.

 

Bernie Constable

I am a community nurse, my office is near Mill Road Broadway. I need to use the bridge frequently to see patients. Closing it will mean longer journey times=less patients per day, pushing more traffic onto other often busy roads: Coldhams Lane, Hills Rd and Trumpington Rd.

It’s been built to enable traffic to move effectively around the city…what on earth is going on?!!

 

John Ball, Cut Price Carpets
Having a business on mill rd for 28 years serving the local community, having the bridge closed until a court date will have a major impact on our business, as our potential customers will not no what’s going on IE , is it close , is it open it will just stop people coming down mill rd all together, please please keep it open my family’s livelihood Relies on the passing traffic that comes past our shop and the deliveries of our very heavy items , and also our deliveries to our shop and if the bridge do close they have said that they will have to stop delivery to our shop as there is no way for a lorry to turn around safely without a flag man

 

Jenny Nelder

I live in chesterton. Every day I juggle looking after my kids, working a demanding job, checking on my parents to help with their daily care (which is often a last-minute cry for help, or a trip to the hospital/ doctors, so I sometimes have to do the journey 2 or 3 times a day). I now need a hip replacement too. The closure of Mill road bridge (for any reason) has an massively negative impact on my daily life and mental health. I can't cycle to take my parents to their medical appointments (I'm struggling to cycle at all at the moment). The bridge closure means more traffic on other roads and now they have the idiotic wands on East road that road is a nightmare (as the main route from chesterton to Mill road). Someone in charge of the bridge closure should walk a mile in my shoes (spend a month being me) before they judge what is reasonable and necessary. It's so sad. So unnecessary.