Petition calls for 20mph speed limit

A petition calling for the speed limit to be reduced to 20mph in a residential area has been brought before Monmouthshire council.

Councillor Tudor Thomas (Labour, Priory ward) presented the petition signed by 313 people to a full meeting of the council on Thursday.

It calls on the county council to take “urgent action” to tackle speeding on Park Crescent and Park Avenue in Abergavenny.

It also requests that action is taken to stop “dangerous driving” late at night at the nearby Fairfield car park.

Cllr Thomas said he had been told by residents of numerous near misses and a pet dog being killed.

Motorists are said to be using the residential streets as a “rat run” to avoid congestion after an increase in traffic blamed on the opening of the new Morrisons supermarket in the town, the meeting heard.

A public meeting attended by more than 100 people has been held over the issue, Cllr Thomas said.

“A family emailed me almost begging me for a reduction in the speed limit to ensure the safety of their junior age children,” he told the meeting.

“They want them to be able to walk to school.

“They want them to be safe when they go along those streets.”

The two roads are part of the route used by pupils attending three schools in the area.

They are said to be relatively straight and wide, encouraging “excessive speeds.”

Cllr Thomas said he had “genuine concern” about the safety of pedestrians using the roads, particularly children and elderly people.

He added: “They congregate at night in the Fairfield car park and then they do a circuit of Park Avenue and Park Crescent at excessive speeds often with very loud exhausts which disturb people’s sleep.”

Cllr Thomas, and Cllr Martyn Groucutt (Labour, Lansdown) have met with the council’s head of operations Roger Hoggins to discuss imposing a 20mph speed limit.

And Cllr Thomas made a plea with the council to put the new speed limit in place “very quickly before someone is killed or seriously injured.”