Reduce the risks - 50/30 Now on the A1307

The A1307 between the A11 and Haverhill (just ten miles) has seen over 16 deaths, 31 Serious Accidents and 99 Slight Injury Accidents in the last five years and since March this year six people (three children) have lost their lives on the road. There are 10 changes of speed limit in 6 miles, several applicable for one third of a mile or less.

We are told that ‘most’ of the fatalities on the A1307 are not related to excessive speed but we believe that if speed limits were reduced then this would have a positive effect. We believe – and we hope that you agree – that this road needs ‘calming’ in the way that only a lower and properly-enforced speed limit can achieve.

The peak period vehicle interval is 1.8 seconds, making this a very difficult road to access at these times of day, however people are still expected to cross the road (up to three lanes of traffic) in the dark with traffic travelling at 60mph just to catch a bus. Two children have lost their lives crossing the road in the last two years.

Vehicles from the villages have to risk their lives to exit their own villages and a roundabout to alleviate these problems and save lives was rejected due to congestion issues related to the high volume of traffic on the road – they just dropped the issue and left residents with the problem. Surprisingly Just four years later Cambridgeshire County Council stated that the road could accommodate an additional 250 lorries per day on the road from a large distribution centre... putting vehicles ahead of people.

Considerable housing and industrial development will continue at Haverhill, inevitably creating even more commuter and HGV traffic on the A1307 but no plans are in place to accommodate it and improvements will inevitably have to come from road safety budgets which mean people have to lose their lives first and this is TOTALLY unacceptable.

We want Cambridgeshire County Council to take immediate action, to reduce speed limits immediately and to make representations to the government for funding to put long term improvements into place.