Rasen Council win in ‘danger road’ safety campaign

The secondary school, in the 30mph stretch of Willingham Road, does not currently have any of the usual traffic calming measures often seen outside schools, and Market Rasen Town Council has been campaigning for action.

Concerned town Mayor John Matthews said: “The traffic is horrendous… it’s dangerous… there’s no protection for the kids”.

Desperate for improvements, Coun Matthews has met with a specialist officer in traffic management at schools (Jan Gibson), a Lincolnshire County Council highways officer (Ben Attridge) and De Aston headteacher (Simon Porter).

Coun Matthews told Market Rasen Town Council’s April meeting: “We met outside De Aston to discuss speeding traffic management, parking and safety of children.

“She [Jan Gibson] came up with a couple of positive suggestions.

“She has the power to extend speed restrictions to a 250 metre boundary from the point of entry into school.

“It’ll affect the 30mph restriction. It’s going to get pushed back down towards Duckworth’s, which is a good thing.

“We could move the active speed detector further down there.

“They offered to come back and look at the traffic management and the parking and see what could be done [elsewhere in the town].

“They offered double yellow lines or single yellow lines [as a solution to parking problems].

“And they offered to come back and look at the traffic management of the [school] coaches.

“The most important thing is the safety in front of the school. Hopefully it will bring some results.”

Deputy Mayor Steve Bunney added: “There’s a time delay with all of these things.”

And he said: “We’ll have to look at other areas of town - we shouldn’t just be doing one area.”