UPDATE 26th September – Somerset Highways has responded to our application for a 20mph zone and have fixed a meeting in early October with the parish council to discuss how best to handle the road safety in our parish.
As most of the community knows a serious accident, involving a fatal injury to a horse and consequent hospital treatment of a rider, occurred on Saturday August 26th on the approach to Trudoxhill from the A361. The road was closed while police, ambulance and a vet attended.
Thank you to everyone who contacted the council to express concern and show their support for measures to curb excessive speed in our parish and to make the roads safer.
As a result of this Sheila Salmon, the Parish Councillor responsible for local roads, wrote to Somerset Highways to report the accident and the community’s huge concern regarding continuing speeding on approach to the village, as well as within, and the danger to horses and riders. This has been an ongoing issue with Highways.
Sara Davis, Traffic Engineer for our area, has replied and is awaiting the full Police report before any further action on her part is taken. She has offered to meet Sheila in the near future regarding improved safety for riders and measures to reduce excess approach speeds and costs involved for the community.
Meanwhile the Parish Council has made an initial application for a 20mph speed limit in the centre of the village – this application comes with a full investigation and assessment by the Highways team of the dangers in the village and methods to solve them. This has only been possibly recently, as Highways and the Police have just changed the process and allowed parishes and villages to apply themselves – rather than being identified by Highways only.
A further application will be made in the near future for a grant towards a Speed Indicator Device to be placed within the 30mph zone.
We appreciate that these processes may not be as fast as we would like, nor are they as transparent as we would like – but as soon as we get further information, progress or updates on the application processes we will post them here on the website for the parish to read. The council remains committed to action to solve the dangerous driving in the parish and believe a 20mph zone and all the features that come with remain the best way to do so.