Serious accident triggers calls for speed limit rethink near stables
A SERIOUS accident close to a popular stables has stoked urgent calls for speed limits to be reduced.
On the 22nd June Elisha Padbury was riding her 20-year-old horse Tommy on Featherbed Lane in Wilmcote, very close to the entrance of Featherbed Stables, when she was hit by a car.
Elisha,16, managed to escape serious injury in the collision, but Tommy was not so lucky and it remains to be seen whether he will ever be able to be ridden again.
The crash has prompted Elisha’s mum Tara to launch an online petition calling on the speed limit of Featherbed Lane to be dropped from 50mph to 30mph.
More than 1,750 have already signed the petition and Tara hopes Warwickshire County Council will sit up and take action.
Tara and Elisha have also been placing signs around Wilmcote urging motorists to watch their speed.
Stratford North county councillor Dominic Skinner, is supporting the family's efforts to lower the speed limit and is also calling for a wider review across the town.
Cllr Skinner said: “The Government are encouraging people to walk and cycle more, which is a really positive thing, but unfortunately the roads are not safe enough.
“I’ve been speaking to Tara about Featherbed Lane for some weeks now. The horse was quite badly injured, but this incident could have been far, far worse.
“I know it is a dangerous road, people do speed. I went over to visit the stables with Tara and you have all these children taking part in a fun outdoor activity, exactly the kind of thing we should be encouraging, yet they’ve got this really dangerous road right on their doorstep.
“I know that getting speed limits lowered is one of the hardest things you can do, it feels like it would be easier to climb Everest sometimes, but if we can get some support behind this hopefully we can push for change.
“All this got me thinking about roads in Stratford as a whole, I know that there is the national 20 is Plenty campaign ongoing at the moment and I think we should certainly look into changing the speed limits on other roads in the town. The recent lowering of the town centre speed limits to 20mph was probably the only thing about the scheme that people actually agreed upon.
“I’m realistic, I’m not calling for every road in Stratford to be made 20mph, but there are lots of high density residential areas where in my opinion we should be looking to make changes, Clopton Road, Welcombe Road, Masons Road, Bishopton, Justins Avenue for example. When my kids were young I couldn’t have them outside on Oakley Road because it was too dangerous.”
Tara said: “Tommy is an amazing horse, he kept Elisha on and took the whole brunt of it himself.
“The vets have been treating him and he’s on painkillers every day, they think the crash might have misaligned his pelvis. We just don’t know at the moment whether he will ever be ridden again.
“I feel so strongly about this because I could easily have got a call to say Elisha was dead in the road, it’s what’s is going to happen if something is not done about this road. There is going to be a fatality on that road and it’s not just horse riders that are in danger, it’s pedestrians, runners and cyclists too.”
Elisha added: “It was very scary when it happened and it’s very upsetting. Me and my friends hack on that stretch of road quite often and a lot of drivers go too fast, we try to get them to slow down, but a lot of the time we just get ignored.
“This has knocked my confidence a bit and that of other people at the stables. This shouldn’t happen, when riders tell cars to slow down to or be careful, we’re not doing it to be annoying, we know our horses, we know how they react."
To view Tara and Elisha’s petition to lower the speed limit on Featherbed Lane, visit change.org and search for ‘HELP REDUCE SPEED LIMITS ON ROADS FOR HORSE AND RIDERS’.
