We were saddened to learn of the death of a pedestrian on Tuesday evening, after being hit by a car on the A4 near Studley Crossroads. Our thoughts and condolences are with his family, friends and loved ones.
The Parish Council is very conscious of road safety issues at this location and locations throughout the Parish. We commissioned a highways consultant to complete a Road Safety Feasibility study and have developed a number of improvement schemes arising from this.
As part of our evidence gathering for this report, we asked Wiltshire Council to undertake a Speed Limit Review of the length of the A4 from Forest Gate to Calne and contributed towards the cost.
This Speed Limit Review was completed by Wiltshire Council’s consultants in October 2022. It recommended a reduction in Speed Limit from the 60mph to 50mph for the sections between Old Derry Hill and Studley, and between Studley and Calne. To our disappointment, however, the Review recommended that the current 50mph speed limit through Studley Crossroads should be retained.
At our Parish Council meeting in December 2022, we resolved to support the two proposed reductions to 50mph, but to further seek a reduction to 40mph through Studley Crossroads, due to the high incidence of collisions at this location, the presence of hazardous uncontrolled road junctions, the presence of a Toucan crossing and the high volume of pedestrians and cyclists crossing the road.
We reported this resolution to Wiltshire Council in December 2022 and appreciate the support that we are getting from the Wiltshire Councillor for Calne Rural, Ashley O’Neill, who is raising this at Cabinet level on our behalf. We have also instructed our Highways Consultant to provide the outline design for a scheme to implement these speed limit reductions, including signage and surface treatments as reinforcement.
We trust Tuesday’s tragic events will serve to underline the necessity and urgency of this scheme.