Drive for safer roads as five villages join forces

Five villages hope to meet authorities to make road safer in lower Teesdale.

Parish councils from Gainford, Ingleton, Winston, Staindrop and Whorlton want a joint meeting with police and crime commissioner Joy Allen and officers from Durham County Council to raise concerns.

Representatives of the villages have been meeting regularly for about nine months to share issues and potential solutions.

Reporting back to Staindrop Parish Council, Cllr Andy Webster said the concerns of the five villages are “roughly similar” and a report had been compiled.

He added that he had recommended the report be condensed into five priorities that the villages share.

Cllr Webster said: “I said our priorities were firstly a safe place to cross in every village, secondly, 40mph buffer zones in villages at every entry and exit, and for us that is particularly in the west.

“We want to lower average speed in each village and that the 30mph zones in villages should grow with village growth.

“This is a particular concern with Gainford right now because of more houses being built.”

He noted that Staindrop has a “ridiculous” situation where the alternative exit from a school car park is in a 60mph zone.

The final priority, he added, was to lower the average speed of vehicles travelling through each village.

One of the ways to achieve a lower average speed, the group believed, was by getting more people to volunteer for community speedwatch.

Cllr Webster said it was suggested that those who are nervous about doing speedwatch in their own community could volunteer to do it in a neighbouring village.

The plan was also to make speedwatch more random, rather than at certain times on the same day in the same place, as had been done in Ingleton.

Cllr Webster said the villages hoped to meet officers and the crime commissioner before December.