DOZENS of residents living near an Ambleside college have put up a roadside banner to flag up their fears about increased traffic near their homes.

Two years ago residents were angered when heavy construction traffic was routed through Greenbank and Castlefield as a new £2 million library was built for St Martin's College.

The college now wishes to change the use of the back entrance to the campus from emergency vehicles only to include maintenance vehicles as well, and is seeking a legal agreement with South Lakeland District Council to secure what it calls "reasonable access" to the site.

But many residents living on Greenbank and Castlefield are fearful this could ultimately lead to ever increasing amounts of traffic travelling up their narrow residential streets to use the access, harming their quality of life.

They have put up a banner at the entrance to their estate with the slogan "College Traffic Not Welcome" and they have written 70 individual letters of objection to the change of use of the gates.

Lydia Wenlock, chair of Ambleside Tenants' and Residents' Association, told the Gazette: "Our fear is if we allow them to change the use there including contractors' vehicles, at some later stage this will become open to ever increasing amounts of traffic going to the college, not just vehicles, not just deliveries, but people entering through those gates."

Mrs Wenlock said universities were "never meant to be in the middle of a small village" and that Greenbank and Castlefield were highly residential streets, with lots of children and elderly people. "The road was never designed to take that amount of traffic, especially if larger vehicles use it."

The residents have the support of Lakes county councillor Anne Parker, and David Vatcher, district councillor for Ambleside.

Coun Vatcher said residents were happy for the back entrance to be moved sideways slightly, so that a larger children's play area could be created, but that residents felt the access should only be open to fire engines, ambulances and police cars. He believes they are "entirely justified" in that view.

Coun Vatcher said he felt assured that before another attempt was made at drawing up a legal agreement between the college and SLDC over changes to access, the residents would have to be fully consulted. "So I'm fairly relaxed about that position," he added.

St Martin's College told the Gazette it had "a real commitment" to the Ambleside campus and the surrounding community. Its new learning resource centre, to be named after Ambleside's Charlotte Mason, had been "sensitively built in keeping with the area" yet offering state-of-the-art facilities to attract students to the town.

The college said that, as with all new builds, there had been disruption, "but kept to the minimum by consultation with local residents".

Campus principal Helen Marshall said: "There can be no more large building initiatives at this campus due to planning constraints so the community can feel reassured on this matter. The college is, however, seeking to retain reasonable access to the site for maintenance and emergency purposes."

St Martin's director of marketing and communications Marilyn Tucknott said that most students would walk to the library from the main part of campus, and added that she could not think of any major deliveries that would be made to the library.

April 25, 2003 11:00