At a lively meeting in Warnham, Thursday evening 13 March, members of the A24 Alliance⁽¹⁾ met with residents of Warnham and Kingsfold. The residents explained how they had been in long discussions with West Sussex County Council over how best to deal with the grief traffic running through their communities gave residents. It was a strongly held view by both Warnham and Kingsfold that the proposed new road from Capel to Horsham would relieve that grief.

Speaking for the Alliance Peter Finch said: "Whilst the A24 Alliance are not opposed to traffic bypassing Kingsfold and Warnham, we are not convinced that a new road will solve the traffic problem in the long term. Information was given by an A24 Alliance member that with the planed widening of the M25 together with the increased capacity of the Leatherhead junction, and changes to Dorking's Deepdene roundabout, forecast volumes of traffic along the new section of A24 indicate that the road would be up to it's design capacity on the day it opened, giving rise to the fear that the villages would still have the traffic problem".

Continuing Peter Finch said: "Alliance members also explained to the Warnham and Kingsfold residents, of their concerns for how their respective village identities would be lost, by the pressure for house building on land opened up by any new road. It was feared that such development would, not only led to even more traffic making their problem worse, but impose on the quality of country life that the village's were so determined to protect".

Finally Peter Finch said: "It was suggested to the meeitng⁽²⁾ that the ideal solution to residents traffic problems was to campaign on the principles on which the A24 Alliance was founded, namely:

* That the A24 be a local road for the communities along it, and not for it to become a high volume regional 'superhighway' linking the M25 with the A27.

* That the West Sussex County Council should not ignore the 'Road Traffic Reduction Act' but set meaningful targets to reduce traffic on the A24. Not provide the infrastructure to increase it".

(1) The A24 Alliance was formed in January 2003 by a number of residents who live in the various villages and individual locations along the A24 from Dorking to Worthing.

(2) The A24 Alliance has been holding meetings since January with residents of the Villages along the length of the A24 to gauge opinion on the future role of the road.

Directions and details of the next few meeting can be found at: http://www.a24alliance.co.uk/

Press Release