Residents demand a cut in driver’s speeds
Grant de Jongh who is leading a campaign to reduce the speed limit outside Hellingly School to 20mph. February 13th 2013. E07219P
Residents are demanding speed reducing measures are introduced outside a school to bring it in line with similar methods in Hellingly.
Members of North Hailsham and Hellingly Residents Union (NHHRU) took their fight to the steps of the district council in a bid to have the 40mph limit halved outside Hellingly Community Primary School.
The A2014, known as Station Road, has had 20mph limits and traffic calming measures introduced along it, apart from the 200 yard stretch of road outside the school.
East Sussex County Council (ESCC), which maintains roads, says it has no plans to reduce the speed limit on the section of road.
The school introduced earlier opening times to allow parents to drop off children in a bid to make the area safer, said its headteacher, Kyra Ward.
Grant de Jongh, chairman of NHHRU, said, “As a parent myself, which is where I started to get complaints, I’ve seen white vans bolting down the road.
“Parents are seeing red over this because the road they have just spent money on the residential section and clearly marked it 30 mph but as it comes through the village it’s reduced to 20mph but the section outside the school is still 40mph.”
The change in the village’s speed limit was paid for by developers of Hellingly Hospital and was agreed by Sussex Police, said an ESCC spokesman. She said, “When considering speed limits we carefully examine the character and appearance of the road in question. In Hellingly, the narrow built up nature of the area around the church makes a 20mph speed limit more realistic than the road outside the school, which is separated from the main part of the village by a length of rural road with no visible buildings or houses.
“We receive many requests for reduced speed limits and traffic calming measures, but budgets are tight and we have to spend our money where it’s most needed. Priority is given to improving the sites which have the highest number of crashes and the most fatal or serious casualties.
“There have been no injury crashes reported to the police on Station Road in the last five years.”
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Thursday 23 May 2013
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