Council agree to take action after Racecommon Road safety petition receives more than 650 signatures

Barnsley Council is set to undertake a road safety assessment on Racecommon Road, after a petition with 655 signatures was handed in.

A petition calling for a Pedestrian Crossing on Racecommon Road was handed in on January 4, and Barnsley Council’s cabinet today agreed to take action.

Councillor Pooja Ramchandani, one of three councillors representing the Kingston Ward, said they have been calling for road safety measure for ‘many months’, and have been in contact with the council’s highways team.

“The traffic team have assured us that they will undertake an assessment of the location before the end of April, in line with the above, to determine whether it meets the criteria,” Coun Ramchandani said.

“Residents can be assured that if the road does not meet the criteria, we will not leave it there – we will be pressing the traffic team to look at all other possible options to improve safety on Racecommon Road.”

Councillor Kath Mitchell added: “The difficulty we have is people not crossing at the lollipop lady, and they cross on Shaw Street.

“Shaw Street especially is a really, really bad junction, because you’ve got cars coming across from four sides.

“There’s a lot more school crossing because we’ve had a number of housing sites.”

During today’s cabinet meeting, leader of the council Sir Steve Houghton CBE said it was an ‘important issue’, which will be given ‘appropriate consideration’.

“Traffic in Barnsley has been building up since the pandemic, I’m sure Racecommon Road is not different,” added Sir Steve.

“I fully understand residents’ concerns. We’ll give it a proper analysis.

“That will take a bit of time but it needs to be done properly.

“There are national guidance and policies around this which obviously we need to take cognizance of, but we’ll make sure quite rightly that a proper assessment is done.

“The outcome of that assessment and any action that we propose to take will be fed back to the petitioner and of course, local members.”