THE ROYAL OAK
The Parish Council welcomes the news
that The Royal Oak has been sold. Members were becoming concerned about
the condition of this unique building in its prominent location in the
High Street.
The previous owners ignored requests to
clear the mounds of rubbish and secure the front door. Finally
assistance was sought from the Borough Council to tidy the site and
board up the front entrance.
The new owners are Joules Brewery, a name
from the past whose Managing Director Steve Nuttall and wife Chrissie
have bought the UK rights and brand from Coors the Brewers. Luckily they
have the original Joules recipe together with brewing notes and methods
and plan to brew the distinctive Moorish Pale Ale that made Joules
famous.
The Royal Oak will be their 18th site and
a flagship location fitting in with their other acquisitions. A new
Brewery has been built behind the Red Lion in Great Hales street, Market
Drayton and brewing will commence in September.
Steve Nuttall has already been in touch
with the Parish Council and is very keen to discuss his plans with
Councillors. A site visit is to be arranged in early September.
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Neighbourhood Highway Teams
Changes have been made to the way that the County
Council’s highway service operates to improve the way in which locally
identified highway and transport issues are considered.
Local communities will be able to have far greater
influence in the day to day activities undertaken by the Highways team
through Parish Councils and Local Councillors. This change will mean
that local highway issues will be dealt with in the following way:-
Safety defects,
such as potholes, standing water and broken street lights report to
Highways Hotline - (formerly CLARENCE) 0300 1118020 or email :-
highways@staffordshire.gov.uk
Faults may also be reported online -
www.staffordshire.gov.uk/transport/staffshighways/contact/contact.htm
For
highway related emergencies out of hours
call pager no. 0844 8222888 and quote Area 2 for defects
in Stafford Borough.
Other
highway defects
such as overgrown footways, weeds, dirty but serviceable
road signs, should be prioritised by the Parish Council and County
Councillor (Henry Butter) for repair by the periodic visits of the
Neighbourhood Highway Teams.
Local Highway and Transport issues will be reviewed every
6 months by Highway Managers and the respective County Councillor and a
prioritised work programme established.
For more details about Neighbourhood Highway Teams and
the work carried out visit the Staffordshire County Council website.
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TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT COMMITTEE
Eccleshall Parish Council Traffic Management committee
has been collaborating with Loggerheads Parish Council to undertake the
first ever ‘cross Parish’ traffic survey for a continuous twelve hour
period to understand the level of vehicle movement and types of vehicles
across the two Parishes from 7am in the morning through to 7pm at night.
In total 2,783 vehicles were recorded using the road
between Eccleshall and Loggerheads in either direction over the twelve
hour period – that’s 3.9 vehicles per minute in either direction - with
slightly more heading out towards Loggerheads (52.1%). The survey
indicates that much of the traffic is either related to morning or
evening commuting or visits to local services – like undertaking the
school run.
Of the vehicles, the vast majority were cars (82.4%) and
vans (12.1%). Surprisingly there were few cyclists – just 16 recorded
in the whole twelve hour period – which was less than the number of
tractors seen (which numbered 20).
The purpose of the joint exercise was to understand the
level of HGVs running between Loggerheads and Eccleshall as both
parishes had increasing levels of anecdotal evidence to suggest a
growing number of lorries using the road. Given that only 90 lorries
were seen during the day – in either direction – this gut feeling was
not borne out by the results from the traffic count. This is equivalent
to just 3.2% of the total traffic seen and one every 16 minutes. So
whilst at least a dozen Councilors across the two Parishes invested time
undertaking the survey, the end result seems to suggest that there is
not a significant problem with large numbers of lorries using the roads
connecting the two parishes which was a surprising if positive result
from the survey.
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