‘Gridlock won’t be repeated’

THE Ahmadiyya Muslim Association has sought to reassure residents that this year's Jalsa Salana at East Worldham will not be a repetition of last year's debacle when rain caused gridlock on roads. The 2007 convention at the former Oaklands Farm on the B3304 Alton to Kingsley road caused chaos when the land became waterlogged forcing drivers to find alternative parking. While it had been possible to alert some convention goers to the situation, there were no contingency plans for wet weather and those who did arrive were unable to access the site. Traffic came to a standstill on the A325 and A31, and rural roads were littered with abandoned vehicles. Residents found themselves under siege, unable to move in or out of their villages and dreading the worst-case scenario. The unimaginable did happen and an ambulance was prevented from reaching a householder in need of medical assistance. With up to 30,000 members of the Muslim Association due to gather on the 210-acre site over the weekend of July 25 to 27, to take part in the 42nd Jalsa Salana, anxiety is building over how this year's traffic flow will be managed. Residents piled into East Worldham village hall last Wednesday for a public meeting to explain how the association had worked with the police, Hampshire County Council, other statutory agencies and local representatives to draw up a transport plan with a built-in contingency for bad weather. The main thrust of the plan is to reduce the number of cars accessing the Worldham site from the 7,000 experienced in 2006 and 2007 to a maximum of 3,000. The aim will be to encourage delegates to use park and ride facilities at the Islamabad site at Tilford, with the Montgomery Barracks at Aldershot on standby as a back-up if wet weather forces vehicles off the Worldham site. Delegates are also being encouraged to car share and to use the train. South West Trains (SWT) will be running a special half hourly service starting at 8am from London Waterloo and stopping at numerous stations along the way. The eight to 12 carriage service will run until midnight each day and is expected to transport in the region of 4,000 convention goers who will be bused to and from the Worldham site from Alton station. Coaches and buses will access Oaklands Farm from the A31, via Mill Lane and through East Worldham. There will be 50 buses coming down from London, with five buses running a half-hourly shuttle service to and from Alton station, and 33 buses making the round trip to and from Tilford – accessing the site via Alton and leaving via Kingsley. A further 30 buses will be brought into service if weather conditions force the use of the Aldershot park and ride site. All cars, other than those coming in from the south, will be directed to enter the site via the A325 through Kingsley. Improvements have been made to onsite management with plans to instal 10kms of temporary metal tracking so that vehicles can be moved swiftly onto site and then directed to parking areas. There will be four gates. Gate 1, nearest to Worldham Hill, is for cars and Gate 2 is for VIP cars, coaches and the shuttle bus service. A temporary bridge will keep pedestrians away from vehicles in this area. Gate 3 will be brought into use if needed and Gate 4, at Park Farm, will be for emergency services only. Temporary road signs will be in place three weeks before the event and will be colour coded. Delegates are to be allocated with coded tickets so they know where to go to park. The association has its own TV network so that in theory everyone coming to the Jalsa Salana will be kept informed of conditions and how to access the site. In addition, there will be an increase in staff from 50 to 100, and they will stay onsite throughout the weekend. Stewards on mopeds will be posted along the route, to support police motorcyclists who will patrol the roads and manage key junctions like Mill Lane and the Sleaford crossroads. According to the officer in charge, Sgt Jason Holford, the police presence will increase to 16 officers during the day, with 12 more on the late shift. The police will operate alongside association organisers, from an onsite control point, and there will be three contact numbers available to local residents, in case of problems. These will be advertised in The Herald. In case of an emergency, the advice is to ring 999. Residents were assured that the police presence would be paid for by the association. According to association spokesman Akram Ahmedi, the convention will open with prayers at 1pm on Friday, July 25. Traffic accessing and leaving the site will be at its height between 8.30am (10am on Friday) and 1pm each day and from 4 to 9pm in the evenings. Confident the new traffic plan would be robust enough to cope with all eventualities, Mr Ahmedi was buoyant enough to joke with those present that nothing short of a terrorist threat would be likely to cause the cancellation of this year's convention. Local residents are yet to be convinced. One resident was anxious enough to point to the heart of local concern: because, in his opinion, the East Worldham site was located in "entirely the wrong place" for an event of this size, he asked whether, if this year saw a repetition of the 2007 problems, would the association reconsider the use of Oaklands Farm as a Jalsa Salana site. The answer from Mr Ahmedi was "yes".