£2,000 project launched to tackle Burnham seafront speeders

Published: June 28, 2007
£2,000 project launched to tackle Burnham seafront speeders

The Esplanade in Burnham-On-Sea

Town councillors in Burnham-On-Sea look set to go-ahead with a £2,000 project to draw up plans for new traffic calming measures along the resort's seafront.

A traffic engineer is to be commissioned to devise a scheme - possibly involving speed humps, rumblestrips and other traffic calming measures - to curb the long-running problem of excessive speed and noise disturbance along The Esplanade (pictured).

It comes after a meeting between Cllr Eric Gill, who is Chairman of the council's Town Improvements Committee, and Ian Williams, the manager of Burnham Holiday Village, plus Burnham-On-Sea police officers Sgt Ian Kennett and PC Pete Wills.

"The Holiday Village pledged £10,000 towards the scheme from next year, and the town council has allocated £2,000 of funding received from County Councillor Mike Facey's community budget to the scheme," said Cllr Eric Gill (pictured).

"Burnham Police said its funding for tackling seafront speeding had now been diverted elsewhere, although cash may become available from a new Crime and Disorder Strategy Budget."

"It seemed clear that there was currently not any funding, or indeed the will on their part, from the County Council to introduce physical measures to curb this problem."

Councillors Mike Mansfield and Joe Leach expressed reservations about the spend, citing other roads in the town such as Love Lane, Rosewood Avenue and Marine Drive which have similar speeding problems.

But Cllr Neville Jones said: "We could put up council rates in the town and sort out all the roads in one go, but what we're doing is addressing the problem in stages, dealing with the worst affected roads first. It's not possible to do them all at once."

Members of the Town Improvements Commitee voted unanimously in favour of proceeding with starting the £2,000 scheme - although a final decision on whether to proceed will not be taken until next Monday's full meeting of the town council.