Five Solihull roads get new zebra crossings from £405,000 approved on 7 September, spent now because the safety data meant to pick the schemes is a year late.

Five Solihull roads are to get new zebra crossings, paid for out of £405,000 that the council had deliberately set aside for something else.

The money was approved on 7 September by the cabinet member for environment and infrastructure, at a decision session (decision record). It is recorded as a key decision and is not subject to call-in.

The five locations, as the report names them, are:

  • Damson Lane near Coppice Road, a new raised zebra crossing
  • Kineton Green Lane near Gunns Way, a new raised zebra crossing
  • Moordown Avenue near Brackleys Way, a new zebra crossing
  • Old Lode Lane near Mayswood Road, a new raised zebra crossing
  • Widney Lane near Clifton Road, a raised hump at the existing zebra crossing

All five are listed as “subject to final design and costing” (Highways Road Safety Service Priorities 2026/27, PDF).

Why the money was sitting there

This is the part the funding announcement does not lead on.

In February the council approved its highways spending for the year. Its Local Network Improvement Programme budget for 2026-27 is £1.475m. Of that, £405,000 was deliberately held back, because the road safety review data that was supposed to decide where it went had been delayed. West Midlands Police needed to carry out a further review of the figures.

The outcome was expected at the June or July decision session. It did not arrive. The report puts the current position plainly: full information and reviews are now “unlikely” before the end of 2026. Any scheme chosen from that data “would likely not be achievable within the funding window”.

So the council has spent the money on something else. The February decision had already agreed that if no schemes emerged from the data, the £405,000 could be released to other priorities on the programme.

The alternative, set out in the report’s own options section, was to not spend the £405,000 and return it to the Combined Authority.

The funding is West Midlands Combined Authority money, from the City Region Sustainable Transport Settlement.

The crossings might not have qualified otherwise

The report is candid about what this means for the five schemes. Bringing them forward, it says, allows new schemes to be built “which may not have been successful against the LNIP criteria and would have been delayed an additional 12 months”.

In other words, these five were not the crossings the assessment process picked. They are the crossings the council could deliver before the money expired. What the report does say for them is that they “respond to demand from local communities”.

Whatever the road safety data eventually shows will now wait. Any schemes it identifies “will be included in the assets and priorities review for 2027/28”.

Solihull's £405,000 crossings: where the money came from and where it goes Two-part graphic. The first part shows Solihull's Local Network Improvement Programme budget for 2026 to 2027 of 1.475 million pounds, of which 1.07 million pounds was allocated in February 2026 and 405,000 pounds was held back for schemes to be chosen by road safety data. The second part is a timeline: February 2026, 405,000 pounds set aside because West Midlands Police needed a further review of the road safety data; June or July 2026, the outcome was expected at a decision session but did not arrive; 7 September 2026, the cabinet member approves spending the money on five zebra crossings instead; end of 2026, the report says full road safety data is unlikely before this point; 2027 to 2028, any schemes from that data go into the next assets and priorities review. Source: Highways Road Safety Service Priorities 2026/27 report to the Cabinet Member for Environment and Infrastructure, 7 September 2026. Where the £405,000 came from Solihull's Local Network Improvement Programme budget, 2026-27 £1.07m allocated in February £405,000 held back Total £1.475m. The shaded block on the right is the money now going to five zebra crossings. How it ended up on crossings February 2026 £405,000 set aside. West Midlands Police need a further review of the safety data. June or July 2026 The outcome was expected at a decision session. It did not arrive. 7 September 2026 Cabinet member approves spending the money on five zebra crossings instead. End of 2026 The report says full road safety data is unlikely before this point. 2027-28 Any schemes the data does identify go into the next assets and priorities review. Source: Highways Road Safety Service Priorities 2026/27, report to the Cabinet Member for Environment and Infrastructure, 7 September 2026. Graphic by The Solihull Post
The £405,000 was held back in February for schemes the road safety data would choose. The data is still not in.

One of the five is already out for comment, and the deadline is 2 October

Four days after the funding was approved, the council published a statutory notice for the Widney Lane scheme. It is open for objections until 2 October 2026.

The notice is more substantial than the one line in the funding report. It covers two full-width raised road humps on Widney Lane, each 6.8 metres wide, 75mm high and 6.5 metres long:

  • one about 26 metres east of the Clifton Crescent junction, at the location of the existing pedestrian crossing
  • one about 18 metres southeast of the Whitefields Road junction, with a new zebra crossing on top of it

Note the road name. The funding report calls the first location “Widney Lane nr to Clifton Road”. The council’s own notice, published four days later, says Clifton Crescent.

Objections go in writing to tro@solihull.gov.uk, or to Mr L Stevenson, Legal and Democratic Services, Solihull MBC, Manor Square, Solihull, B91 3QB, stating the grounds (notice, PDF).

The other four schemes have not reached that stage. The report says detailed consultation will happen during the design phase, including statutory consultation wherever a traffic regulation order is needed.

Eleven crossing schemes are already being built

The five new ones join a programme that is already busy. The council’s traffic regulation orders page currently lists eleven pedestrian crossing or traffic calming schemes at the “scheme under construction” stage:

  • Bills Lane, Shirley, near Queens Avenue and Hurdis Road
  • Bills Lane, Shirley, near Shakespeare Drive
  • Bosworth Drive, Fordbridge
  • Church Hill Road, Solihull
  • Dingle Lane, Solihull
  • Frankholmes Drive, Solihull
  • Green Lane, Castle Bromwich
  • Longmore Road and Union Road, Shirley
  • St Bernards Road, Olton
  • Widney Lane, Solihull, near the railway station
  • Widney Manor Road, Solihull, near Solihull Sixth Form

Two of those are on Widney Lane already, at different points. The new Clifton Crescent and Whitefields Road humps would make three schemes on one road (traffic regulation orders).

What it means for you

  • If you live near one of the five roads, the crossing is funded but not designed. Costs and final layouts are still to be settled, and a traffic regulation order will bring a formal consultation where one is needed.
  • If you use Widney Lane, you have until 2 October to object to the two raised humps and the new zebra crossing. That is the only one of the five you can comment on right now.
  • If you have campaigned for a crossing somewhere else in the borough, the road safety data that would normally support your case is not expected until the end of the year at the earliest, and schemes from it are being pushed into the 2027-28 programme.
  • Expect roadworks. Five crossings and eleven schemes already under construction means a steady run of short closures. Current ones are on our Solihull roadworks and travel page.

Sources