Eastington’s Approaches to Road Safety

We are a group of independent parishioners, connected to the Parish Council, who work in our spare time to review and plan a rolling road safety programme for our parish.

You might remember a call the EARS group made last year to raise funds to help brighten the appearance of our village – introducing a psychological approach to respecting our space.  To support this project, we raised just over £200 at a car boot sale from your kind

donations, and the money was put towards paying for last summer’s beautiful flower tower in the village. This was admired by many

people, so we decided not only to continue but to increase this with a couple of railing baskets in 2016 - we have also persuaded the parish council to fund them this year!  Hopefully these floral displays will demonstrate to motorists that we care for our village.

However, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out that this approach is extremely limited, and that there are many other initiatives that could be added to our overall plan providing greater effectiveness. We are beginning to install 'entry gates' to the village following parishioners’ choice to fit these several years ago at a local road safety meeting.

In addition, there is another option that has recently become available for consideration - the 'Safe Speed System’.  This involves installing a camera to identify vehicles passing through the village at excessive speeds. The system has been developed by a Rodborough parish councillor working with local police and the Safe Speed System group.  Rodborough Parish’s success has inspired our Gloucestershire Police & Crime Commissioner, Martin Surl, to offer grants for road safety projects such as this one.  Eastington Parish

Council has applied for a grant from the commissioner– but these things take time!  The big question is: Do we actually want such a system in the village? Well, do you remember that speeding was a top concern in the 2012 parish questionnaire? – it was, so things probably haven’t changed much!

The EARS group are aware that there are other road safety issues in the village, such as the on-going issue of central parking, and we would like to get your opinions on this. We would welcome the chance to have your concerns discussed openly, face-to-face, at a parish meeting - so please look out for adverts about this

happening in September.  We plan to get our local parish 'experts' to come & tell us what they have been trying to do, but mainly we will have the Rodborough speed camera experts to tell us all about catching the speed culprits!

As always EARS values parishioners’ thoughts and good ideas on how we can improve the parish we live in.  Please come and join us and discuss all your concerns on these issues. It’s an opportunity for you to talk to us - don't leave it to the face-less social media!

David Aston - 01453 823035 or 07774 288822

Pauline Allen – 01453 822068 or 07775 926587

Jennie Corrie – 07714 334938