Five Barnsley roads in line for £90,000 road safety scheme funding

Barnsley Council announced a one-off pot of £90,000 for road safety schemes in February 2021, and councillors were invited to submit three highway safety issues from their wards.

In total, 47 schemes were put forward, which would cost more than £500,000.

Five schemes have been selected for the funding, and a further 15 will be investigated.

The schemes selected are a pedestrian refuge island on Pontefract Road, Hoyle Mill; A new footway on Shaw Lane, Cudworth; Pedestrian crossing improvements on Sheffield Road, Penistone, and pedestrian refuge islands on Park Street and Hough Lane, Wombwell.

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A 20 MPH School Safety Zone Pilot has also seen advisory 20MPH signs installed at four out of five schools selected.

The remaining site at Nicholas Lane (Highgate Primary) is to be completed in the coming weeks, according to a report.

“Work is ongoing to promote and recruit to the vacant school crossing patrol vacancies which exist across various school sites,” it adds.

The report to go before Barnsley Council’s overview and scrutiny committee at tomorrow’s meeting states: “The member suggestions were also reviewed to see whether any could be delivered by other work programmes and where the benefits can be shared across related schemes.

“Feedback from elected members has been extremely positive about the pilot scheme and has been seen as a welcome addition to the annual decision-making process which governs road safety investment across the Borough.

“Further investment has been supported to progress several more proposals using the £2m enhanced highway’s fund.

“South Yorkshire Safer Roads Partnership’s (SYSRP) latest road casualtyannual report for 2020, shows that total casualties in Barnsley continue to reduce, as do the total number of people killed or seriously injured (KSI) on the network.

“In the 2020 calendar year, there were a total of 444 casualties on the network, a reduction of 19.9 per cent when compared with 2019.

“Covid-19 and the associated restrictions undoubtedly affected road use and therefore road safety.

“The reduction in vehicles was of benefit to pedestrians and cyclists with the total number of casualties reducing in 2020 by 24 per cent when compared with the three year average for 2017 – 2019.”