Many seemingly idyllic rural villages and towns across the UK have become increasingly blighted by growing volumes of traffic in recent years and Sussex has not escaped the general trend.
Seen from the safety and comfort of your car, a village can look picture-postcard pretty – but the experience of those living in the community and attempting to walk to work or school during the morning and evening rush hours can be very different. Threatened by speeding motorists, poisoned by exhaust fumes from HGVs, and cars mounting pavements in an attempt to squeeze past one another, even leaving your house becomes a frightening experience.
Storrington in West Sussex is a case in point. It’s a small town of some five thousand souls, gateway to the South Downs National Park, and at first glance an extremely attractive community, with its high street lined with a wide range of shops and pubs, a village pond with swans, and a regular community market. And yet the lives of many of its residents are being rendered “sheer hell” as one put it, by the volume of traffic passing through the village. Storrington is on the A283, which is often used as a cut-through and alternative route by motorists wishing to avoid jams on the coastal A27 – a trend which has been massively accelerated by the use of satnavs.
People are trapped in their homes
Claudia Fisher, one of three District Councillors for Storrington and Washington on Horsham District Council, shared the stark figures with Sussex Bylines, and they are horrendous. Over half a million vehicles pass through the village each month with all the associated noise and pollution that that volume of traffic generates. Speeding is a major issue. Of the 6.5 million vehicles travelling through Storrington annually, 40% have been clocked exceeding the speed limit.
What was once, as Fisher describes it, a slow and sleepy village, “where I used to stroll down to the local grocers on the high street with my grandmother and buy ham pie and drop books off to the library – well, now, it’s very different. When I campaigned in the by-election in 2022 the number one issue that came up on the doorstep was traffic. People were really unhappy. Elderly people felt trapped in their homes, not even being able to come out to shop…”
Once elected, Fisher and her fellow district councillors decided to act. They held a public meeting in November 2023 to discuss the problem of traffic volumes and large numbers of people turned up. The views expressed ranged from the cynical – “We can’t do anything, what’s the point?” – to people enthusiastically putting forward their pet solutions. Attendees were also asked to write on post-it notes how the traffic in Storrington made them feel. A word cloud was created from their contributions which powerfully summed up people’s sense of anger and sometimes despair. The biggest word was “frustrated”.
Starting to organise
During the discussions, one thing became evident very quickly – plans (or lack of them) for the whole major road network along the coastal strip and through Arundel and Chichester have a direct impact on the community in Storrington and the surrounding villages. A by-pass around Arundel was once thought to be the solution to jams on the A27 but, with the bitter opposition of Arundel residents, that plan has been scrapped and other, less environmentally damaging, schemes are being explored. This all takes time, and in the meantime the residents of Storrington suffer, although not in silence.
From that first public meeting a year ago the Storrington Traffic Group was formed, representing the voices of the community, and the group has been holding a number of meetings and events to publicise the problem. It is running a fundraising campaign to raise £7,500 for three speed indicator devices, and in September it organised a demo of local residents: “Enough is Enough!”, they proclaimed. The group assembled in central Storrington and held up signs reading “We Love Our Village” as a reminder to passing motorists that people live, work and learn in the village, and that residents deserve to be considered by those driving through.
Group members have also organised clean-up events, to encourage residents to take pride in their community and to showcase Storrington’s attractions to visitors. They’ve put a particular emphasis on safety, cleaning road signs, cutting back foliage that was obscuring speed limit signs, and clearing around street crossing points.
“We need action and we need it now”
Will this be enough to make a real impact on the numbers of vehicles driving through the village, and on speeding? The campaign organisers are certainly hoping so. Claudia Fisher recognises that the problem is a much wider one, not confined to her own community, but she is also aware that cash-strapped district and county councils are unlikely to support any solutions that call on them to commit more funds from their already squeezed budgets. One positive step is the co-operation that has been growing between different bodies, with the local neighbourhood policing inspector, Neil Durkan, a regular attendee at the meetings of STOP (Storrington Traffic Organisations Partnership).
Ultimately, Fisher believes that publicising the personal stories of local residents and business owners who have been so severely affected by the volumes of traffic will help to move the issue up the agenda at county council level. “I’m very keen not to create divisiveness, but I feel that by holding regular events and working together with groups in the community we can keep the pressure on.”
Change can’t come soon enough for one Storrington resident, Louise Mosey, who lives on the A283 Pulborough Road. “It’s very stressful living here. We’re regularly woken by noisy HGVs that make the windows rattle, and the stream of traffic is never-ending. The air quality is poor and every day the village’s children, elderly and our pets are put in danger. This has been going on for far too long and we have had enough. We need urgent action and we need it now!”
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