Down to work in North Road ward

North Road ward stretches on both sides of North Road from the B&Q DIY superstore up to the Thompson Street crossroads. It has pockets of poverty and deprivation, with a large number of single-parent families and a transient population, an area of traditional terraced and semi-detached owner-occupied houses and a new estate of detached and semi-detached houses. There are residential homes and sheltered housing, primary schools, local shops and pubs, North Cemetery and North Park. It is a varied ward, with more than its fair share of problems and issues.

I have been working with our Lib Dem Councillors there for the past year or so, helping to produce our regular Focus newsletter. Now it's time to start working for the people who live there. Our first surgery since the election is next week, but already there are issues old and new to deal with.

Traffic problems beset some of the residential streets, as the Council's policy of speeding traffic flow along North Road, by limiting the number of access points to the road, forces drivers to seek short cuts through residential streets.

Leyburn Road has been particularly badly affected by the closure of the slip road from Thompson Street East onto North Road. After several months of pressure, it seems that we may have improved things for local residents by persuading officers to change the timing of the lights at this junction to allow more vehicles to access North Road without the need to look for a short cut down Leyburn Road.