Residents want safety measures to cut ‘speeding’ traffic on Stratford road
URGENT safety measures are needed on a central Stratford road before someone is seriously hurt, according to a concerned resident.
Ian Whitehead, 78, said Grove Road is like a “racetrack” where an accident isn’t waiting to happen because a number already have.
Ian, who lives in Wellesbourne Grove, said he’s contacted Warwickshire County Council and asked the highways authority to consider urgent road safety measures to help reduce the risk of a serious accident.
“Last Wednesday another accident happened when a woman’s car was hit by a cement truck” Ian told the Herald. “She was trying to edge out from Wellesbourne Grove when the accident happened. I parked her car and invited her into our home and made her a cup of tea. She said she was just thankful her three-year-old boy wasn’t in the back of the car.
“We have lived at the bottom of Wellesbourne Grove for a few years now and the driving on Grove Road is just getting faster and faster, it’s like a racetrack.”
Last week’s collision is the second Ian said he had seen recently and, as a proud grandparent, he and his wife want to make sure their grandchildren are as safe as possible when they use the Wellesbourne Grove-Grove Road junction.
“You have to edge out carefully to improve your line of vision but because of the speed of the traffic, once you do start moving forward you sometimes get a motorist shaking their fist at you,” he said. “There’s also been an enormous increase in HGVs, presumable on their way to the M40 and M5. The young woman whose car was hit by the cement truck was from Meon Vale and waited with us until a tow truck arrived for her car.”
As well as contacting the county council, Mr Whitehead is hoping to arrange a meeting with county councillor, Kate Rolfe (Lib Dem, Stratford South) to discuss the matter further.
“I’d like to see some kind of traffic control because our great concern is the excessive speed that some drivers do. The risk of a serious accident is real, and I’d like to see a 20mph speed limit which is speed camera controlled,” said Ian.
A spokesperson from Warwickshire County Council said: “Warwickshire Road Safety Partnership is bringing partners together to improve the approach on how we investigate and respond to residents’ concerns of speeding in their area. A consistent and data-led approach has been developed which considers all types of personal injury collisions reported and average speed data at the location.”
To report a speed concern, visit www.warksroadsafety.org.
