Villagers needs action to reduce speeding - MP

Elderly residents in a village are too scared to go shopping due to speeding traffic, campaigners have claimed

Residents of Claverdon, near Stratford-upon-Avon, said their worries about traffic on the A4189 have been ignored by Warwickshire County Council for decades.

More than 100 people packed out a public meeting on Saturday with locals expressing their concerns for the authority to hear.

The council said the county councillor for the area was in touch with residents and a transport official would meet with them in the near future.

Solutions put forward by residents included fixed speed cameras, narrowing the road and extending a 30mph zone at both ends of the village.

The Liberal Democrat MP for Stratford-on-Avon, Manuela Perteghella, said the issue needed to be resolved "as soon as possible".

"There's been petitions in the past, the residents and parish council have been very very proactive in offering solutions," she said.

"The county council needs to listen and act...we need a programme of speed reduction, we need for the council to engage with residents, with the parish, but also we want to see some action, some change."

Addressing the room, resident and campaigner Steve Lister said it was a meeting the village did not want.

"What we're asking for is nothing special, we're asking for nothing different than what other villages and towns have got around Claverdon," he said.

He added that elderly residents were frightened to visit the local shop out of fear of speeding traffic and parents would not let their children ride bikes on the road.

"It's getting worse, the traffic's increasing and the speeding's increasing," he told the BBC.

Mr Lister said members of the council were invited to the meeting but declined to attend.

He added: "Today, we just really want to get the residents to really have their voices heard and take that back to the council to say: 'Enough is enough'."

"We need them to take action, and we need them to reduce the speeds through the village."

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