A FROME resident is making a formal complaint to Somerset Council about traffic levels and speed of vehicles along Vicarage Road.
Rose Heaword, who lives on Vicarage Road, is urging Somerset Highways to review the street, following vehicles ‘speeding’ over the 20mph speed limit, an increased number of lorries, and a high volume of cars using the road as a ‘rat run’ from Portway and Christchurch Street, to get to The Silk Mill, Marks & Spencer and Iceland car parks.
Rose said, “Enough is enough. The road is too narrow to have two-lane traffic. I have seen cars using the pavement as a passing place, which affects pedestrians walking there. I have seen lorries attempting to try and pass each other and the road is too narrow. There’s lots of blind spots, people can’t comfortably negotiate along the road. It’s meant to be a 20mph speed limit along here, but cars use this road as a rat run and they are definitely going over 20mph.”
For three years, Rose has been informally complaining about the increased traffic and speed of vehicles. She said, “I keep complaining about this, but get told that due to admin around Saxonvale, there is a hold up to anyone looking into it. It’s not good enough. I have also recently become partially disabled and started to use a mobility scooter and I can’t use it on the pathway here because there’s just no space. It’s a narrow footpath as it is, but it’s made even worse when the cars and lorries are speeding by. Many cyclists use this road, but it’s dangerous because a car could come speeding round the corner, or they could get stuck when cars try and pass each other. There have also been a few near misses with pedestrians.”
With the increase of traffic and lorries using the road, Rose also reports an increase of pollution, saying, “It’s horrid. There are fumes everywhere down here. I had my door open one day and there was a car stopped outside my house waiting for another car to go by. Fumes were pouring into my house and I said something to the driver about it, to which they told me ‘shut the door then! We don’t have a neighbourhood collective voice at the moment, but I want the community to be united in this.”
Regarding the issue of speeding across the town, Frome Community Speedwatch coordinator, Ashley Reay said, “People continue to speed [in Frome] and they are not listening to the message that they need to slow down.”
