Some weeks ago I requested information relating to speeding figures on Front Street and Abbey Road, Pity Me from tests made last year which appeared not to have been released. To my surprise I was informed that these figures would have to be released to the County Councillor before/at same time as being released to me.

I find it hard to believe that figures for speeding taken July and September last year had still not been passed on to our County Councillor or it appears the police. Your County Councillor released some of these figures to the Parish council last week most probably because of my enquiries and I have attached his response below as a word attachment.

He states regarding speeding on Abbey Road that it “does not meet the police target for carrying out an enforcement campaign in the area”

On the same day as his press release to the Parish council I received a reply from the police to my extensive investigations which read:

“I am in receipt of speed and traffic flow survey data from Durham County Council, provided as part of our partnership working in theses matters, which indicates there is indeed a high level of vehicles exceeding the speed limit at a level where enforcement action by the Police would be considered.”

Rather odd that our County Councillor believes the complete opposite. I am also interested in Cllr Burlison’s claim to be constantly in touch with the police in this matter given that it appears he didn’t even have these figures before I requested them.

Your Labour County councillor also states in his release that average speed on Front St, Pity Me is 25.7 mph. His own figures on the same page state that it is 31.4 mph. He goes on to say that this “lower speed is probably due to the close proximity of the mini-roundabout that encourages motorists to slow down.”

The speed test was carried out outside Bishops Way near the Electricity substation – hundreds of metres from the mini-roundabout! I wonder if he knows the area at all. Furthermore if you see the FULL FIGURES which I also post a copy of, you will see that 56% of vehicles are speeding on Front Street in Pity Me and a massive 64% on Abbey Road.

The average figures which have been released by Cllr Burlison do not include an awful lot of information. For example they don’t tell you that 30,900 cars are speeding on Front St, Pity Me every week.

They don’t tell you that on Abbey Road over 3000 cars a week are travelling more than 40mph in the 30mph zone. There is a link below to the video which the government released illustrating the fact that at 40mph there is an 80% chance of a child being killed.

If Cllr Burlison thinks that the police don’t think this warrants action he is wrong. The police do take it seriously and in their email to me said with regards to Abbey Road:

“On the basis of the above speed information, a specific speed enforcement campaign will be initiated and Officers of our Road Policing Unit will target the area for speed enforcement attention at the intelligence led times when speeding vehicles are known to be of particular concern “

UPDATE: Following my investigations the police will now also be taking action on Front St 

Your County Councillor clearly isn’t taking this issue seriously. In fact if it had not been for my investigations I expect it would never have been taken seriously. He should have been sorting this out months ago when these figures came out, not giving out incorrect information which is in direct conflict with police opinion and appears to dilute the problem.

His comment that engineering work on the pavement will help reduce the speed on the Framwellgate Moor stretch of Front St is ludicrous. The average speed there is 25mph.

The files:

speedingpityme.pdf Cllr Burlison’s statement and average figures. I have highlighted in red the items discussed above.

fullspeedingresults.pdf The full set of figures

Link to government video (Some people my find this upsetting):

http://www.thinkroadsafety.gov.uk/campaigns/slowdown/download/2005tv.mpg

On a positive note, the speed tests I asked for on Woodbine Road and The Avenue after requests from residents have come back with hardly any speeding at all.