A man has blasted Norfolk County Council for refusing to consider lowering the speed limits in his village until 2023 at the earliest.
Barnham Broom resident David Bell said the authority’s promise to prioritise the village for a speed limit review next year was “paying lip service and doing nothing”, leaving residents “doomed for disaster”.
Mr Bell had started a petition calling for the village’s speed limit to be reduced in 2021, saying that he feared somebody would be killed if it was not lowered from 30mph to 20mph.
By October, he had collected some 178 residents’ signatures and he attracted support from the local primary school, the parish minister, and several local businesses.
It led to Barnham Broom Parish Council writing to the county authority in March 2022 to formally request a lower speed limit.
The parish council said the village had “suffered numerous road collisions and near-misses”, including a November 2021 accident in which a motorist lost control of their vehicle while driving within the current speed limit, requiring the help of the police, fire service and air ambulance.
But five months on, the county council has now revealed it won’t be taking any immediate action to lower the limit.
A spokesman said the authority “does acknowledge the concerns parishioners have raised” and “as a result, Barnham Broom has been listed as a priority for speed limit review under the Road Safety Community Fund [RSCF]”.
“The review covering South Norfolk (including Barnham Broom) will take place in 2023.”
He said the council would follow government guidance in its review, which includes not setting speed limits at an “artificially” low level, which could “actually cause more safety problems as the difference in speed between the fastest and average speed of drivers increases”.
He added: “As in any place, if the data suggested a particular location saw a high number of accidents, action would be taken separately to the RSCF review, however in the case of Barnham Broom there is no data suggestion of increased likelihood of collisions”.
Mr Bell responded: “Why would the whole community be requesting it then? Do we have to wait for a death?”
The county council said it had no further comment.
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