But before we have Christmas fun - we have some business.
Nothing has changed! Our local community continues to experience excessively high speeding vehicles using Moorfield Road, witnessing dangerous driving taking place at various points in the road and still getting too many oversized HGV's using Moorfield Road as a cut through to the industrial estates.
Unfortunately, Cheshire Police can only cover Moorfield Road for 1 hour of trucam speed enforcement once every seven weeks (due to low levels of manpower) and you will no doubt understand that this does not have any impact on our communities safety issues or act as any deterrent to bad driver behaviour.
Latest Traffic Evaluation Report 14/10/2020 – 28/10/2020 (14 day period)
31mph – 40mph = 7390
41mph – 50mph = 336
51mph – 60mph = 14
61mph – 70mph = 2
553 = Total amount of vehicles breaking the speed limit
This means around 553 vehicles a day travelling southbound are travelling in excess of the speed limit. Assuming that the same amounts of vehicles are travelling northbound, this means over 1,106 vehicles a day are traveling in excess of the speed limit and breaking the law.
Halton Borough Council has made it quite clear that no further action will be taken to reduce the risk to our community. Mr Tim Gibbs Operational Director, Policy, Planning and Transportation at Halton Borough Council has stated that traffic flow and saving money are the most important aspects to Halton Borough Council rather than the safety of residents living on Moorfield Road.
Thank you to all residents who have shared the fact that you have failed to receive any kind of response to your emails raising your concerns over the serious road safety issues on Moorfield Road to Mr Tim Gibbs. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has tried to communicate with representatives of Halton Borough Council over the same matter. It is appalling that someone in his position can just ignore correspondence from Local Council Tax payers and does not have any consequence for his lack of courtesy.
Please do not forget Mr Gibbs has chosen to ignore the intervention of the former Chief Inspector of the Widnes Local Policing unit, Mr Simon Parsonage and Police Crime Commissioner for Cheshire Mr David Keane. Who both felt that the installation of physical traffic calming measures on Moorfield Road was the only long-term solution to speeding traffic and despite their high ranking positions; their opinions and views have been ignored.
It is also a real shame but no surprise at all, that all our Local Councillors and the Council Leader Rob Polhill continue to ignore requests for action from the Petition, the Moorfield Action Group and fellow residents. However, they are our representatives and they need to work for their money. So I ask you - those of you who feel strongly about the safety to our friends and families - to keep up the pressure. Please contact to your Local Councillor or the Council Leader Rob Polhill if you have not, the more people who do complain the more chance of them listening. We need a commitment from Halton Borough Council to work for us - to put pressure on those making decisions which affect the quality of our lives.
In the Runcorn & Widnes World this week there was an article on the amount of money Halton Borough Council has paid out in compensation for failure of professional negligence. In the article it stated that as a highways authority, the council is responsible for maintaining roads and can be liable for damages if someone is injured by defects in the pavement or carriageway, unless it can show it had a good system for inspecting the roads and carried out those inspections regularly. At the end of 2019 Rob Polhill Council leader promised this community, that Halton Borough Council would undertake a new traffic survey on Moorfield Road but this failed to happen and instead used data from 2014. Despite Bower Brook Gardens Housing developments 1,2,3 being built, new flats at the bottom of Warrington Road, changes to infrastructure (such as speed reduction measures on Barrows Green Lane), the new Aldi, which brings yet more traffic to Moorfield Road, they did not feel the need to re-examine Moorfield Road.
We have stated on numerous occasions that Halton Borough Council has failed to uphold their duty of care as stated in their own corporate strategy to ensure the safety of local residents on local roads. Should a fatality occur in the near future there would be a very strong case for corporate manslaughter? Corporate Manslaughter and the Public Interest test: Notwithstanding financial circumstances, in an appropriate case it may nonetheless be in the public interest to proceed with a case of Corporate Manslaughter in order to ensure that the seriousness of an offence is properly marked. There will be a strong public interest in securing corporate accountability, due to their failure to listen and act upon: the warnings from the local community, the lack of acknowledgment to the online petition signed by 260 local residents and the views of the Moorfield Road Action Group and the hundreds of complaints from the local Community.
Hopefully Next Year will be a better year for everyone! Thank you to all those who support this cause and until something is done to ensure our safety the fight goes on!
Wishing you all a Merry Christmas & a Happy Healthy New Year!