Stratford MP backs village’s fight to tackle speeding traffic

STRATFORD MP Manuela Perteghella has told a packed meeting of residents in Claverdon that she will back them to the hilt in their campaign to crack down on speeding through the village.

“You will get a speed reduction and double white lines as well,” she told them. “We will fight your corner. I find it disgraceful you have to wait for a fatality to get things done.”

The main target of residents’ anger and frustration was Warwickshire County Council’s highways department, which has continually refused to implement speed-reducing measures in Claverdon despite mounting evidence that vehicles of all kinds are driven far too fast along the A4189 Henley to Warwick road.

Local resident Steve Lister, who organised the meeting and has been campaigning strenuously for the past 18 months to get the highways department to reduce speed limits or introduce traffic calming measures in Claverdon, told the villagers: “There was a petition 30 years ago to lower the speed. Six hundred residents signed it – and nobody listened to it.”

Mr Lister said the highways department took the view that the A4189 was “fast but not dangerous”. There were “not enough accidents to justify any changes”.

Also present at the meeting were Warwickshire county councillor Ian Shenton (Cons, Arden), who also represents Wootton Wawen on Stratford District Council, and Cllr Duncan Parker (Green, Claverdon and Snitterfield). Both pledged continuing support for the villagers’ campaign.

Another supportive voice was that of Sally Rolfe, traffic management adviser to Warwickshire Police.

But the person to whom the villagers are looking to really get things done is Ms Perteghella, as the local MP. “Manuela will be our facilitator, to navigate us through the rules and regulations, through the various departments, to get some action,” said Mr Lister.

“It helps that I’ve got MP after my name,” quipped Ms Perteghella, to laughter.

For a full report see the next issue of the Herald.