Wingfield Parish Council engages with Wiltshire Council’s Local Highways and Footpath Improvement Group (LHFIG) to raise issues that need the intervention of the Highways department. This could include new or replacement signage, speed limit setting, footpath maintenance, street lighting, road markings and flood management affecting roads. LHFIG meetings are held approximately every three months. Representatives of local parish and town councils attend to present their highways issues, solutions and funding requests. LHFIG holds a limited amount of funds that it can contribute to small and medium projects, usually on a 50/50 basis with funding from the relevant parish or town council.
Small projects can be undertaken directly by the Parish Council and include installation and maintenance of Speed Indicator Devices (SIDs). These remind drivers of the speed limit through active messaging and provide useful traffic data that is shared with Wiltshire Police. SIDs are not cameras and do not record number plates or car photos. Data is restricted to vehicle speed, time and direction, along with traffic volume and density across the day. SIDs can be both active (showing speeds) or passive (recording data only). Monitoring in both active and passive mode has proven that SIDs in active mode do indeed reduce traffic speeds.
Larger value, more significant infrastructure projects can be applied for through the LHFIG using the Substantive Bid process. This is a ‘competition’ for funds from a Wiltshire Council fund with parishes and councils submitting bids. These bids are ranked and the most successful will be funded. Substantive bids require around a 10% donation to the project. These projects can be lengthy, across a number of financial years.
Problems with the highways, with potholes in particular, can be reported directly via the MyWilts app or the MyWilts page of the Wiltshire Council website. Once you’ve registered for MyWilts, it is a quick and easy route to make Wiltshire Council aware of an issue locally. They will issue a ‘ticket’ and follow up with their actions in due course. This has proven to be an effective form of reporting and action.
The Parish Council also works to promote transport links that benefit the village: bus services, cycle routes, bridleways and footpaths.
We would love your suggestions on ways in which we could improve highways safety and the village’s transport links; please feel free to contact our Parish Clerk.