RESIDENTS in the Bridestowe area are being urged to attend the annual parish council meeting tonight (Thursday) to call for a speed limit to be placed on part of the old A30, now West Devon Drive.
Village resident Vanessa Pearce believes a limit of at least 40mph is essential between Combebow and Stone Farm, just outside Bridestowe.
Mrs Pearce, who has leafleted homes in the area asking people to attend the meeting, said that while the volume of traffic using the road had decreased since the dual-carriageway A30 opened, the speed of much traffic had doubled.
She said: 'There could be a tragedy — traffic hurtles along at terrifying speeds. There are bus stops, a telephone box, a council tip entrance and farm entrances on the road.'
Mrs Pearce said that when visiting her parents, who live at Combebow, getting her three young children from the car to their house was a 'nightmare'.
'I wouldn't let one of them walk along the pavement as the backdraft from a speeding lorry would blow them over or, worse, blow them into the road.
'I hope as many people as possible will come along to the meeting and show how strongly they feel about this issue.'
Parish council
chairman John Leonard said the matter could be raised under any other business at the end of the meeting. 'If people want to make a point they will definitely have the opportunity to speak,' he said.
The meeting, in Bridestowe Methodist Church Hall, starts at 7.30pm.
The spur to call for a speed limit was a letter to the Okehampton Times by Sylvia Crocker who lives on the road at Cross Lanes near Bridestowe.
She said that in warm weather some motorcyclists seemed to use the road as a racing circuit and speeding motorists were a danger to riders and walkers.
l See Letters, page 4.