Since investment and safety improvements on Horsham’s Parsonage Road Level Crossing local residents have been deeply concerned by hold ups caused by safety barriers being down for longer.
Local MP, Jeremy Quin, raised these concerns with Network Rail and met them at the level crossing on Friday (18th November). He received commitments for ongoing improvements to help residents.
Prior to the upgrade the crossing was one of the highest level crossing risks in Sussex and the upgrade from half-barrier to CCTV-controlled full barrier has reduced the crossing's risk-score by some 18 times.
Local residents had however been significantly inconvenienced by the barriers being down for up to 10 minutes at a time.
Katie Frost of Network Rail (Sussex Route Director) committed that the timings had already improved and this would continue:
“A new system takes time to bed-in but our signallers are getting more experienced on this crossing. A new set of operating instructions to support minimising the barrier downtime is already making a considerable difference which I hope is a real improvement to road users in the area. Through a number of commitments we’ve made, we expect to be able to improve this further, while still keeping the significant safety benefits to passengers and the local community.”
Jeremy Quin added “Network Rail says it has now reduced the downtime of the barriers to around 2-3 minutes per closure and I witnessed this myself during our meeting. They have committed to providing me with regular updates on barrier down times so we can monitor what I hope will be ongoing improvements.”
Please find below a copy of a letter Jeremy has received from Network Rail regarding the Parsonage Road level crossing.
