Clinton Pringle: Why were road safety plans discarded?

Thursday 21 September 2017

A safety audit conducted by international experts made recommendations to limit vehicle access to an area in which a toddler was killed in a road accident five years later, Express has learned.

Three-year-old Clinton Pringle was killed as he crossed a shared space area of Tunnell Street to Milennium Park while on holiday last summer after being hit by a van. Driver Rebekah Le Gal (39) was subsequently sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, for causing death by careless driving in July.

But Le Gal may never have been able to access that space had a rising bollards system suggested by leading engineering and design firm Parsons Brinckerhoff in 2011 been adopted.

Their report, which has never been published, but has been viewed by Express, outlined three options to limit vehicle access to residents, refuse collection and emergency vehicles only from Tunnel Street to Robin Place where Clinton tragically lost his life.

Under systems one and two, an automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) system would have only allowed permitted vehicles to pass through, while under the third option, those with unrecognised number plates would have been forced to wait 90 seconds before being allowed access to Robin Place.

Pictured: Clinton Pringle was run over in the shared-space area of Tunnell Street. (Google Maps)

That report was commissioned by Transport and Technical Services (TTS) – now known as the Department for Infrastructure – and presented to the St Helier Roads Committee in April 2011, Express understands, in the midst of ongoing discussions over traffic calming measures for the then new £10million Millennium Park.

While the Parish had responsibility for the roads and TTS for the park space, TTS continued to play an active role in monitoring and advising upon safety issues.

But for reasons that remain unclear, Parsons Brinckerhoff’s recommendations were never implemented by the Roads Committee.

Pictured: A 2010 Millennium Park Traffic Plan suggested using automatically rising bollards to block access to Tunnell Street and Robin Place. That suggestion was later backed in the Parsons Brinckerhoff safety audit.

The consultancy firm’s findings largely echoed suggestions already mooted in traffic proposals tabled in late 2010. Minutes of Roads Committee meetings during that time suggest that both TTS and the Parish had initially been supportive, and a further question mark remains over which party made the decision to scrap the idea.

The findings will come as a blow to road safety campaigners who had expressed concerns over the risks of ‘shared space’ for pedestrians and children long before Clinton’s accident. But TTS officials explained at the time that drivers would become more cautious due to the layout, with studies showing that average speeds in the area had reduced to 17mph.

Throughout the week-long Le Gal trial, the layout of the road was criticised extensively, with Clinton’s father Michael later claiming that the town planners and designers responsible for the ‘shared space’ model had “blood on their hands.” Last month, he visited 10 Downing Street to air his views over the controversial layout. 

Pictured: Clinton's father, Michael Pringle, met with the Prime Minister to express his concerns over the controversial road layout.

Meanwhile, a petition asking for an urgent revision of the "dangerous lack of distinction" between road and pavement around Millennium Park launched by campaigner and friend of Clinton's mother Nicola McAteer, has gained more than 3,300 signatures.

Yesterday, that goal to make shared spaces a thing of the past moved a step closer. Following a trial closure of Gas Place to all except residents and business owners this summer, the Roads Committee decided to make that closure permanent.