Road safety priority for Local Committee

Cumbria County Council's Local Committee for Copeland recently agreed to allocate £20k to introduce a road safety scheme and accident reduction measures along the C4001 Lowca to Harrington Road. 

The Scheme includes the provision of centre lining to the full length of the road, cats eyes and warning signs/road markings at the locations where the majority of the accidents have occurred. The cost of the measures will be around £20k in the first instance with additional maintenance costs associated with routine renewals in future years. The Committee also agreed to recommend to Allerdale Local Committee that they take similar measures on the portion of the route in Allerdale. 

County Councillor Ronnie Calvin, Chairman of the Local Committee says 

"This short section of road sees a lot of traffic. In the last five years, there has been 104 casualties along this road including 2 fatalities. The road lacks any significant features and the majority of incidents involve vehicles leaving the road, or an out of control vehicle colliding with another. I hope motorists take note of the road markings and signs and drive in a manner that allows them to deal with the hazardous points so we can reduce the current levels of incidents. Though providing road markings and warning signs on a C Class road is not standard policy, the local committee has a commitment to channel funds into routes that have to be used when our only trunk road is obstructed and to reduce the casualties on our roads where these mostly occur. This will take two thirds of our danger reduction Budget for the whole of the Copeland area for this year and work will be done over the next two months."