GCP chair Elisa Meschini says contractors transforming Milton Road in Cambridge were subjected to ‘awful verbal and sometimes physical abuse’
Opinion | Cllr Elisa Meschini, chair of the Greater Cambridge Partnership board, writes for the Cambridge Independent about the Milton Road project.
It has been four months since we completed the major works on Milton Road, and I think it is fair to say the transformation of the area has been amazing, whether people are walking, cycling or getting the bus. As chair of the Greater Cambridge Partnership, I have always maintained that the scheme represents good value for money for residents, and that the result would significantly improve everyone’s experience of the place they live and travel in. I have now genuinely lost count of the people who have come to tell me they feel safer, happier and proud to live and travel on a road which offers a good balance of the many forms of transport for travelling in, out of and around the city.
Residents had to live through two years of road works, junction closures, hi viz jackets and noise, which was very difficult. As a resident of the area myself, I lived through it with them and I completely understand the frustration that was occasionally expressed.
However, I also knew that once the new facilities were up and running, without the temporary traffic lights, harris fencing or mixture of completed and uncompleted sections, things would start to change.
The vast majority of the local community have been amazing and I am just so happy now that they are reaping the benefits of the new features on Milton Road. It is always going to take a little time to get used to new systems for crossing the road and different layouts at junctions but the feedback has been extremely useful and we are making excellent progress with tweaking the various new features. Seeing how people are helping each other if they see someone who is uncertain has been lovely. This is what communities do.
Getting to this stage was no easy feat and the teams who have worked on the scheme should also be congratulated for what they have achieved. They were hampered by difficult weather conditions, tonnes of unexpected layers of concrete to dig through and I am also afraid to say they also suffered awful verbal and sometimes physical abuse by a very small minority of people.
Rumours were spread, which were complete rubbish, about how the scheme was delayed or over budget – neither of which is true. I’m very pleased to be able to report that the scheme ran to time, was on budget and the cycling and walking facilities are up to the latest standards.
Milton Road, like Histon Road, is now a route which people look forward to using whether they are walking, using a mobility scooter or pushing a pram. People are finding navigating the improved surfaces and priority signalling much easier than before. And this is just the beginning of the improvements we are set to see in Greater Cambridge, with our greenway network growing by the day and plans for Madingley Road coming forward. The more people see of the actual benefits of our schemes, the more they understand what we are trying to do.
Our projects and schemes will become part of your everyday life, giving you new and safer choices in how you travel, so please enjoy and use them.
