Roadkill fails to trigger traffic measures
Residents on a road in St Leonards that has become a ‘rat-run’ for speeding traffic since the opening of the Bexhill Link Road have found that the Highways department of East Sussex County Council won’t prioritise traffic calming measures unless triggered by deaths or serious injuries.
Springfield Road, which runs between London Road and Gillsman Hill, has a growing non-human casualty list. According to Alice Butler, who has launched a neighbourhood action group to seek protective measures, three cats were killed in separate incidents within a few days of each other in April – one of them her own family cat – while just in the past two weeks a fox cub was killed, a traffic island smashed down, and a dog hit, requiring life-saving surgery. She says: “it is literally a matter of time till a person is killed. The street is a thoroughfare for many school kids, there are shops and amenities nearby, it’s used by many pedestrians.”
CREDIT: Hugh Sullivan
The Council has made a written response to her request for calming measures to be imposed, informing her that the issues raised “will be assessed by an experienced officer, who will examine your suggestions against clear criteria drawn up to help us prioritise the numerous requests we receive for improvements”. However, they went on to spell out the reality – that, while “many residents wish to see preventative rather than reactive measures put in place, we have to prioritise sites where people have been killed or seriously injured…Generally under 5% of requests meet the criteria for further assessment to be considered for inclusion within the road safety programme.”
The council then fuelled the indignation of the group further by ripping down signs and posters which they had assembled in the street to appeal to drivers as they passed.
Local councillors approached by the group have suggested that they contact Speedwatch, a national initiative where, in partnership with the police, volunteer members of the public use detection devices to monitor local vehicle speeds, and report drivers exceeding the legal speed limit to the police with the aim of educating drivers to slow down. Ms Butler says they have contacted Speedwatch several times with the aim of training up a resident to do this, but have received no response.
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