Silence The Loud

Hi, my name is Dave. Our little community are trying to raise awareness of the speeding problem we have on West Road locally known as the Loud. We know there have been at least two fatalities on the road and both were children, one little girl Victoria aged eleven and a little boy Toby aged nine. Victoria (god bless her) was struck by a vehicle at sixty miles per hour whilst walking on the footpath. In April 2024 there was almost a third child fatality, Dan, eight years old, thanks to the North East air ambulance and Newcastle RVI hospital, Dan survived although he suffered multiple injuries and was in a wheelchair for a number of weeks. It was this accident that prompted me to begin the campaign to persuade the local authority to traffic calm the road.

The local authority did not want to traffic calm the road, however at a roadside meeting, the Durham Police representative agreed to temporarily put a mobile safety camera on the road and have a speed assessment done on the road. The results were astonishing, to everyone except the residents. The results showed that fewer that one in three drivers stuck to the speed limit of thirty miles per hour, seventeen percent of drivers were driving at forty miles per hour or over. The Police agreed to have the mobile safety camera visit the road on a regular basis. This was a good start but could never be the finish. In august 2024 I met with our local MP and he agreed to attend a roadside meeting with police commissioner Joy Allen, I also invited the leader of Durham council to attend and she agreed. Our local cricket club agreed to host the meeting. The meeting took place on 17/01/25 and the attendance was amazing, there literally were no seats left, this left the locally elected representatives and authority with no doubt as to the strength of feeling from the community.

Our police and crime commissioner, revealed some more frightening statistics. We were told that between July 24 and January 25 more than one thousand drivers had been caught speeding on the road and over seventy were so far over the maximum speed limit they were taken to court. Frightening indeed when you consider the safety camera is only present for a couple of hours per week. Our local authority costed the traffic calming project at £48,000 amazingly our local county councillor agreed to pledge £24,000 from her 24/25 budget. So where we are now is, we have half the cost pledged, we are hoping the balance will be filled either by our local councillor from the 25/26 budget or from Joy Allen our police and crime commissioner. We mustn’t allow our local authority or our locally elected representatives think we have gone away, so we must keep a local profile. We have involved our local school, where the pupils drew road safety pictures. These pictures will be displayed at the top of the Loud in due course and is funded by Stanley Town Council. We have had banners printed and flyers printed too, which I have paid for myself and I have been more than happy to do this. However, the feeling in the community is we may need more banners, flyers etc to keep our profile alive which i cannot afford to do on my own. So we are asking you for donations to help us achieve this, any donation of any amount no matter how small will be greatly appreciated. If when we achieve success and get the road fully calmed, there is any money left, this will be donated to a charity. With your help TOGETHER WE CAN SILENCE THE LOUD!

Thank you