DORCHESTER residents, bothered by traffic to and from the town’s tip past their front doors, will take their plea for traffic orders to the county council this week.

Those living in Lubbecke Way and Long Bridge Way say that, despite promises for a speedy resolution using an experimental traffic order, it has taken more than six months and still nothing has happened.

Today their calls for action will be heard by the council’s petitions panel.

Despite a request for the panel to be held in public that meeting is being held behind closed doors – contrary to the Government presumption of openness in local affairs.

A county council spokesman said: “These petition meetings are not formal committee meetings and are not held in public. Panels are for the lead petitioner to meet with the respective cabinet member and local member to resolve the petition issue.”

If the petitioners win their case for a 20mph limit, traffic calming measures, limited parking orders and a 7.5 tonne limit the request will then have to go to the council’s regulatory committee and, if they approve it, then to the county council cabinet or a full meeting of the council – all in the last two weeks before the county council is abolished.

The row over traffic problems in the road has been rumbling on since last summer when the county council made Lubbecke Way the only route to and from the town’s household recycling centre at Louds Mill. Until then traffic had made its way along St George’s Road.

Despite planning the new route for several years and the fact that it appears in the 2006 Local Plan and received planning permission in 2009 the county council had not prepared parking regulations to stop heavy lorries using the route, or all-day parkers from effectively narrowing the road to one lane in places, and had also done nothing to slow traffic down past homes, including a residential home for the elderly.

Within days of the road opening as the tip route residents were complaining about damaged cars, a deterioration of the road surface and a risk to pedestrians, including children who play in the area and often come to feed the ducks in the river which runs parallel to the road.

The town’s ambulance station is also in the road as is the county association of youth clubs headquarters and access off the road to Dorchester Youth Centre.

A meeting with MP Sir Oliver Letwin was held at the end of the summer when residents were told that an experimental traffic order would be used, as the quickest way, to tackle the parking problem. Bollards were put in the road soon after to discourage parking, but quickly became damaged and ineffective, ignored by a significant number of drivers.

Dorchester Town Council has backed the residents pleas, led by ward councillor Stella Jones. The council has long campaigned to move the recycling centre elsewhere, supported by a recent planning inspector’s report which said that the road to and from the centre is “not of the standard expected.”