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Exmouth road could get speed cameras

Jill Richards, Ed Lee and Megan Armstrong

Residents say they despair at noise

Residents of Hulham Road say they despair at the noise and speed of traffic and have called for speed cameras to be introduced on the road, which has a 30mph speed limit, as it is ‘only a matter of time before someone suffers a very serious injury, or worse’.

A petition of 240 signatures was presented at a Devon County Council meeting in October, and at the East Devon Highways and Traffic Orders Committee meeting, councillors heard that speed data for the road has been gathered by both the police and Devon County Council in separate covert operations.

A meeting of the Speed Compliance Action Review Forum in January will consider speeding on the road, whether speed cameras need to be introduced, and also whether the Pound Lane Mini roundabout needs to be redesigned.

Meg Booth, Chief Officer for Highways, Infrastructure Development and Waste in a report to the HATOC said that it is accepted that visibility to the right from Pound Lane is restricted, but that monitoring of the collision record before and after the introduction of the mini roundabout demonstrated that the safety record had been improved.

The HATOC unanimously agreed that the Speed Compliance Action Review Forum should discuss the issues in Hulham Road at their meeting in January.

Speaking after the meeting, Jill Richards, from Hulham Road, and who had organised the petition, said that the residents were still wishing for speed cameras to be installed.

She said: “We want is speed cameras, but if they won’t do that, then the roundabout off Pound Lane needs to be redesigned so that cars have to go around it rather than drive straight over it as they do now.

“Residents who live there experience these speeds every day and residents are repeatedly intimidated by impatient speeding drivers trying to pass them when they are trying to exit or enter their own properties.”

She added that one person has had their car written off, and a garden wall has been demolished as drivers speed along the road, and that the residents have been promised the results of the covert speed checks.

But she said: “It depends on where the cameras were placed and the time of the day in which the checks were done, as sometimes the road can be quiet and other times it is very busy. “We wanted the covert speed checks to be carried out at peak times when the problem is at its worst, but as they were covert checks, we don’t know when they were done.”

Jill, alongside fellow resident Ed Lee, and district ward councillor Megan Armstrong, has previously handed the petition to a full Devon County Council meeting.

But Cllr Jeff Trail, the Devon County Council member for Exmouth, said he was disappointed that the residents did not speak to him before presenting the petition to the county council, and asked them in future to come and speak to him directly with any issues they have.

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