RESIDENTS and councillors joined together recently to highlight their concerns over the safety of animals and people on Dartmoor’s roads.

Twenty-six residents, five Sampford Spiney parish councillors and the chairman of the Dartmoor Commoners’ Council attended a public meeting on October 26 in St Mary’s Church, Sampford Spiney, to discuss the ‘significant increase’ in animals being injured and killed and the ‘dangers’ now faced by people walking, riding and cycling due to speeding vehicles.

One local farmer spoke up at the meeting to say that during lambing season he had one lamb per day killed on the road just below Pew Tor due to speeding motorists. Local resident Jo Ellis reported that several lambs had been killed or injured in the narrow lane leading to Hecklake, Samford Spiney, and a report was provided by Karla McKechnie, Dartmoor Livestock Protection officer, which detailed the hot spots for accidents on the moors.

To try to make the roads safer, residents felt it was their duty to educate local residents and visitors to Dartmoor on reducing their speeds.

Jo said: ‘The general consensus was to develop some hard-hitting signs that show the sheep and ponies that have been fatally killed and approach Highways with a view to obtaining a speed reduction.

‘It was agreed that one overall speed reduction should be requested.’

Residents at the meeting felt that in the narrow, winding lanes in the villages, speeds should be between 10 and 15mph.

The overall message from all attendees was to advise people to slow down and drive slowly around the winding lanes of Sampford Spiney, Moortown, Stourtown, Woodtown and across the open moor.

This meeting followed a petition to change the speed limit of unfenced roads on Dartmoor that has gathered momentum.

The petition was launched in 2018 by Dartmoor resident Isobel Parris, who attended the October meeting.

Within a week of starting the petition — which requests that all unfenced areas within the Dartmoor National Park should have a maximum speed limit of 40mph due to the rising number of animal deaths on the roads — it had received more than 8,500 signatures.

Mrs Parris, who has lived in the area for over 30 years, started the petition after she became distressed when a week-old foal was hit by a vehicle in a 60mph area and died.