Agenda item

RESOLVED that the report notifying the receipt of the following petition be noted and the recommended actions for responding to it be endorsed:-

1.    Containing the signatures of 205 signatories, in respect of Improved road safety at Carr Green Lane, Mapplewell, Barnsley.

a.    BMBC Traffic Team does not support this proposal as there is no history of Personal Injury Collisions (PICs) at the point in question within the last 5 years and only one slight PIC on the whole of Carr Green Lane. We justify the significant investment of road safety improvements on the basis of a reduction in PIC’s at the location. Each accident saved produces a cost benefit to society as a whole through reduced emergency service involvement, reduced hospital costs, reduced loss of earnings for injured parties and loss of productivity, reduced insurance claims and so on.

Every site that is recommended for treatment on an accident basis is prioritised for funding across the borough. As the budget for road safety improvements is finite, it is the sites with the greatest proven need which are treated first and these will have a cluster of incidents with a discernible trend or pattern in the cause of each.

Installing traffic calming measures without justification on an accident basis leaves the council open to criticism that there is no human or cost benefit to society; an investment of thousands of pounds with no substantial return to the tax payer. We could also not justify to local communities where road users have been killed and seriously injured in speed related collisions, expenditure on a location that has no justification in terms of an historic accident basis.