More residents have backed calls for a safety review of the A534 Crewe/Nantwich Road through Willaston and Wistaston.
A campaign to make the road safer is being led by Cheshire East’s Wistaston councillors Margaret Simon and Jacquie Weatherill.
It follows a number of bad accidents along the road, which they say are being caused by speeding vehicles, particular at night.
Cllr Simon said: “We have obviously struck a chord with residents and also with people who use it each day.
“More of them have been in touch including parents who walk along it taking their children to the local schools.
“One parent sent me photographs of damage that had taken place at the junction of Holly Place with Crewe Road.
“Barriers had been erected by the damage and they were subsequently hit and moved by another vehicle.
“At a time when Cheshire East Council is calling for more people to walk or cycle short distances, we believe it’s time for them to move from car-centric solutions to making residential areas safer and healthier for the community.
“Let’s give the roads back to the people.”
Crewe and District Sustainable Transport group ACT believe the A534 should have been downgraded after the A500 Shavington bypass road was opened.
In a statement, they said: “It’s time that the speed limit was reduced, safe crossings installed at the Peacock roundabout and other junctions, and a restriction put on through traffic.
“Part of the rationale for spending millions on building the Shavington bypass was to reduce traffic through the area.
“Yet like many other schemes, a purpose-built highway was constructed, but the old A534 was not downgraded. It remains a wide and fast road running through a major residential area.”
Cllr Weatherill added: “It’s very encouraging people have been in touch with us. The information they give to us all helps to build up a picture of what has been happening along Crewe Road, Wistaston and Willaston over the last few years.”
A Cheshire East Highways Route Management Study is due to be carried out in the 2014/15 programme on the A534.
Given the poor state of much of the road surface on the A534, I am starting wonder if driving at 60mph might be a way of reducing the risk of damage to wheels and tyres in the sense that a car driven at high speed “flies” over the potholes rather than dropping into them. I think that, one way and another, CEC has a lot to answer for here.
We live on Crewe rd, we have had 3 cars crashed
Outside our house, 2 on the same night & 1 arrived upside down on our
Driveway.
It’s a huge worry
I support the general idea that there should be changes to the A534 from Nantwich to Crewe to improve road safety. However, just reducing the speed limit, for example, without setting up some sort of active enforcement system, seems unlikely to work. I have heard of motorists driving at 60mph along the A534, which has a 40mph limit. The sort of people who do that will not change their driving behaviour just because the 40 sign is replaced by a 30 sign. What might change their behaviour is a policeman with a speed camera or even a static speed camera, or series of them, in good working order, videoing their bad driving and issuing them with penalty tickets. Another possibility is speed humps all the way between Nantwich and Crewe, This, unfortunately, penalises everybody, including bus services and I don’t think the majority should suffer for the bad driving of a minority. I am not sure we can relay on local councillors to solve the problems because Cheshire East, of which the named councillors are members, does not keep the road surfaces in good order and that is just as much a safety issue as speeding. I suspect a lot of this comes back to spending cuts for CEC and the police. Until that changes, there is no realistic hope of improvement.