A272 and junctions

Apart from the beautiful rural setting, an attraction of living in Bolney is excellent access to the A272 and the A23. It is naive to think that residents will not need cars and there could be 2 per household, not counting delivery vehicles.

Increased traffic is certain as the village will inevitably have to accommodate additional car ownership in the new housing estates. This will increase traffic jams and accidents at the many junctions on the A272, with the knock-on effect of creating rat-runs through the village. This is already a problem and despite a 20mph speed limit in parts of the village, it will only get worse. At Crosspost, volume of traffic, speed of traffic, unpredictable vehicular turns, difficulty getting out of private driveways and dreading the ominous sounds of screeching brakes have been a blight on the lives of residents for a long time. One resident has logged incidents sporadically over a period of 3 months, read the account here. One person was observed being taken to hospital for surgery following an incident.

West Sussex collision location map for the last 5 years is here

FOI request for information from Sussex Police regarding collisions between Cowfold and Bolney,
reply of 18 March 2024, FOI ref 0340 24:

The A272 is a fast and busy road not suitable for cyclists. There is a single north-south cycle path on the eastern edge of the village but even this directs cyclists to cross the A272 very close to the busy and fast roundabout by the bridge. It is dangerous for pedestrians to cross the A272 by Bolney Nursery to get to the Diamond Jubilee Walk beyond.

Preliminary traffic access plans along the A272, as proposed by Wates for Foxhole Farm, are unlikely to have gone into sufficient detail to give a realistic assessment of existing and increased traffic volume and risk to life. They may not have taken a broad view of the effect of additional cars on ALL junctions along the Bolney stretch of the A272 and also other traffic which will be generated by Rampion 2. Any under-estimation of the scope and cost of mitigating roadworks at this stage will have serious repercussions later on.

Future proposed installation of new traffic lights by the commercial buildings on the former Marylands Nursery site will cause yet further traffic buildup which needs to be taken into account for traffic analysis for Foxhole Farm.

Construction traffic is a big issue, as witnessed by large vehicles turning and the large number of contractor vehicles parked for several weeks along both sides of London Road during construction of Davey Drive / Walder Close (Churchfield View development), obscuring visibility and posing a safety risk to road users. Any construction traffic with access points to a site on the A272 will cause havoc with traffic flow and would have to be regularly monitored for compliance with safe operating procedures.