Cumbria Police say no action needed on Bransty Road but speeding concerns remain

Residents of Whitehaven Central raised concerns about road safety to their ward councillor during the 2019 election campaign.

Since being elected, councillor Joseph Ghayouba has passed on concerns about speeding on Bransty Road to Cumbria Police who have now carried out a road safety assessment.

Acting on concerns raised by residents, the neighbourhood policing team installed treads in four positions to monitor the speed motorists are travelling down Bransty Road.

The treads found that 15 per cent of motorists were travelling above 33.2mph.

On this basis, the councillor was told that no additional road safety measures would be necessary and although he thanked them for carrying out the investigation, Cllr Ghayouba does believe enough motorists are breaking the speed limit to warrant additional measures.

One set of treads recorded that 85 per cent of motorists were travelling 33.2 miles per hour and the average speed was 27.9 miles per hour.

​CONCERNED: Cllr Joseph Ghayouba

Inspector Richard Smillie, from the Neighbourhood Policing Team said: “In Cumbria, the Constabulary works in partnership with other agencies as part of the CRASH (Casualty Reduction and Safer Highways) group, which feeds into the Cumbria Road Safety Partnership.

“The Constabulary, together with partners from Cumbria County Council, local authority representatives, Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service, National Highways and other voluntary road safety organisations , discuss areas of concerns from either members of the public or from our own collision data.

“This is to see whether engineering, education or enforcement solutions are needed to deal with the issues identified.

“The NPCC (National Police Chiefs Council) provides guidance to Police forces across England and Wales regarding enforcement levels and the data shows the speeds recorded on Bransty Road are below those levels. A review of accident data for the last five years showed that there were no reported injury or fatal accidents along the route which is also taken into consideration when considering the location of our Safety Camera Vans”

Cllr Ghayouba said: "It's frustrating because when I was doing a lot of canvassing during the election people said there was a lot of speeding.

"I was up on Bransty near enough every day door knocking and I would hear cars going up the hill clearly sounding like they were over the speed limit.

"As a councillor I'll keep pushing. From my point of view, you don't get things on the first try.

"Hopefully residents keep reporting the issues to me which I'd urge them to do and I can go back to police and say 'look there's clearly something going on here."

Cllr Ghayouba said: "I don't dispute what the residents are telling me. When you see cars speeding it's clear as day and it only takes one car speeding to cause an accident."