Meigh crossroads prompts road safety protest

Newry Councillor Liz Kimmins has said that the big turnout at a Community protest rally in Meigh at the weekend  was a clear statement to Roads Service about the depth of concern local residents had in relation to traffic speed and road management safety issues.

The local Councillor who has long been lobbying for action to be taken to address the concerns said “This fantastic  turnout at the community rally this morning in Meigh, clearly shows the depth of feeling and concern there is.

 “I have been working on this issue for a number of years now and there have been several serious collisions at this location, the most recent being last Tuesday just 24 hours after I had met with Department for Infrastructure (DfI)officials to again highlight this problem and request they reconsider their previous decisions to do nothing”.

Highlighting the issues of concern Cllr Kimmins explained “This is a matter of life and death, it is an extremely busy junction as we saw first hand this morning, with cars approaching the village from a 60mph stretch of road into a 30mph zone, and a lot don’t slow down.

One of the key issues faced by motorists is that people from outside the area do not even realise it is a crossroads and are driving straight through, which has been the cause of many of these collisions.

 I have also asked Newry Mourne and Down District Council to look at this as part of the environmental impact scheme which has been planned to regenerate the village and this has been tabled for discussion at our meeting on 29/08/19.

In terms of Road Safety, I have also asked for this to be dicussed at the next meeting of the Policing and Community Safety Partnership,to see what support and assistance the local policing teams can provide on this issue”

Concluding the Councillor praised all involved for ensuring that the issue will be kept high on the agenda,

“It was great to see other councillors now coming on board in support of this cause, the residents have had enough and we need to work in partnership to send a strong message to the statutory bodies that enough is enough”