From Brierley Hill Area Committee: In response to a written question in relation to the accessibility from the Brierley Hill Town Centre to the Health and Adult Social Care Centre in Venture Way, Brierley Hill, the Area Liaison Officer indicated that an investigation would be undertaken in conjunction with Centro in relation to the possibility of providing a bus service to service the above location and would respond direct to the questioner and Members.
Response
Any decision regarding the location and frequency of Centro services is an operational matter over which the company will ultimately have the final say. However, local Councillors and Council Officers have met on site with a representative from Centro who has agreed to take up this issue with the bus operators in order to identify potential improvements in the quality of bus services available to the general public.
To assist the crossing of Venture Way, pedestrian phases have been incorporated into the traffic signals at the junction of Venture Way and the access to the Asda store to the south of the Health and Social Care Centre. In addition, there is also a pelican crossing just to the north of the Health Centre.
It’s also really important that students who are going to be attending the new Art & Design Campus on Venture Way – which is opening this September! – have a direct bus link to this area. We are expecting in excess of 1,000 students and this should be taken into consideration when considering viability of a commercial service.
As chairman of Brierley Hill Traders Association , we the traders are strongly opposed to the introduction of a new bus facility on Ventura Way, as part of our support for the new road system it was agreed that there would be no facilities for buses on this route as we feel that the introduction would draw the number of buses from the High Street onto the new Ventura Way i.e making the High Street separated from the developments. The idea is that people would use the bus facilities in the High Street and filter through to the new developments as the distance from the existing facilities to the new development is just a short walk away. The general idea of the area action plan is to link the High Street to the new developments but by placing bus stops directly on the new development it is contradicting the linkage. We the traders feel this will undermined the High Street position. We are strongly opposed to this.