RESIDENTS of an east Reading street are calling for safety measures to be installed after a number of traffic incidents, and a temporary speed cam was triggered more than 114,000 times in a fortnight.
St Bartholomew’s Road, which is next to Palmer Park, connects Wokingham Road with the A4 London Road, and is a key route to access the A329m.
The collisions, residents say, have led to cars being written off, leading them to ask Reading Borough Council to take action.
Reading’s Green Party, which has three councillors representing Park Ward where St Barts’ Road is situated, have collected a petition which states: “Cars frequently drive too fast on St Bartholomew’s Road, which has a 20mph speed limit. It is not uncommon for the cars at the side of the road to be driven into and recently a driver rolled their car over.
“Reading Council please can you tackle speeding on St Bartholomew’s Road.”
The petition has received 64 signatures and was presented by Dr Melissa Marselle at a meeting of the council’s traffic management subcommittee held on Thursday, January 12.
“The narrowness of the road can make passing very tight, and this poses a danger to road users,” she said.
“In October last year, these conditions led to a serious car crash on St Bartholomew’s Road which resulted in the car being flipped on its side after it crashed into two parked cars.
“This resulted in two fire engines and an ambulance coming to rescue the person out of their car.”
She stated a temporary road speed sign was installed for two weeks and was triggered more than 114,000 times.
“In light of these concerns, 64 local residents signed a petition requesting the council investigate road safety, I urge you to take their concerns seriously,” she continued.
Green Party Reading leader and member for Park ward, Cllr Rob White, said: “One resident contacted me to tell me his daughter’s car has been written off not once but twice.”
He added that Greens successfully campaigned to bring the speed limit down to 20mph in the road and suggested community infrastructure levy funding from developments could be spent on safety measures on the road.
Cllr Tony Page stated that the council only has power to install traffic calming measures such as speed bumps and chicanes.
He said: “I’d venture to guess even if we did put humps in St Bartholomew’s there would still be problems.”
Enforcement of speeding is reserved for the police, he continued, with some London councils being granted the power to fine people for exceeding speed limits as well.
He said: “We would like to have those powers, we are lobbying for those powers.
“We would like to do more, physical measures can only do so much.”
Councillors agreed to add to the road to the council’s ‘Requests for Traffic Management Measures’ list so a solution to the issue can be considered.
