Fears over speeding motorists on Brede lane

Sally Gardner has been asking the council to fix the speed limit sign at the end of Pottery Lane since early December and wants some sort of traffic-calming measure put in place.

East Sussex County Council argues it cannot afford it and told Mrs Gardner ‘no action was required’ with the sign, much to her disbelief, but has since said the sign will be fixed.

Six cats have been killed by vehicles on the lane in the past few months, including two of Mrs Gardner’s, and she believes it will take a person being hurt for the council to do anything.

“I honestly think someone is going to be killed down here,” she said.

“There’s no footways and there’s nowhere to go if a lorry comes unless you’re by someone’s drive. It shouldn’t be a dangerous place to live.

“I can’t see that just a go slow notice would be so expensive as that’s what they say, they can’t afford it.”

It is not known how long the sign has been in the hedge for but Mrs Gardner reported it to the council at the beginning of December, and was told it would be inspected ‘as a priority’.

But weeks went by with no action until she received an email from ESCC this week saying officers had inspected the sign and found no action was required.

Mrs Gardner said picking up her dead cat off the road after it had been run over ‘felt like the end of the world’ and just wants something done before anything worse happens.

“It would be a big problem when someone’s killed, we have got a mixture of older people and young people here,” she said.

“Including a lad who’s 11, who’s profoundly deaf and his very sensible mum is getting more frightened to let him out of the driveway on his own as he can’t here the traffic.

“We pay a lot of council tax for very little in the way of services – just put a go slow sign up.”

An ESCC spokesman said: “Our highways steward has visited the location and advised that the speed limit sign be put back in place.

“However, due to our limited resources we have to prioritise work and this is not a priority at present as the affected sign does not pose a danger to motorists and there is another sign on the other side of the road advising motorists of the speed limit.

“We have a limited amount of funding to develop local transport improvements and we need to ensure we target our resources to those schemes which will be of greatest benefit to local communities.

“We have assessed whether traffic calming might be appropriate in Pottery Lane but it doesn’t meet our criteria so we have no plans for such a scheme at present.”

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