Council backs speed limit cut at crash blackspot

Councillors have backed plans to reduce the speed limit at an "accident cluster" site in Lincolnshire.

There have been 11 crashes around the junction of Fulney Drove and Mill Drove North, near Spalding, in the past five years, according to Lincolnshire County Council.

Proposals to reduce the speed limit from 60mph (96km/h) to 50mph (80km/h) in all directions approaching the junction were approved at a meeting on Monday.

It heard there was a problem with vehicles overshooting when emerging from side roads and improved road markings and signage had failed to make any difference.

Councillor Charlotte Vernon described the statistics as a "huge number" of accidents, adding the council "should do anything we can to reduce them".

Meanwhile, Councillor Tom Sneath welcomed the changes, but said he wanted the measures to go further, including stop signs being installed at the crossroads.

"The road is exceedingly narrow – it's just about passable by two lorries if they're going very slow," he told the committee.

"I've turned up milliseconds after a car had pulled out and clipped another car. It's a blind corner, so you can't really see.

"You can end up with cars barrel-rolling down the road because they're going 60mph."

According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) there have also been five more accidents where people have been injured to the north of the area in the past five years, and four to the south.

Another accident was reported just hours before the meeting, it said.

A council report stated: "The site is recorded as an accident cluster site by the Lincolnshire Road Safety Partnership, but despite engineering interventions including enhanced advance warning signage and changes to road markings, the numbers of reported injury accidents remains high."

If approved by the executive councillor for highways, the new speed limit would extend north to the junction of Weston Hills Road, and south to the A16.

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