A MOTHER from Mary Tavy has started a campaign to try to introduce traffic calming measures on the ‘dangerous’ A road through the village.

Nina Bowden has set up a Facebook page ‘Mary Tavy Traffic Calming Measures’ to gain support from residents and visitors and ideas as to what could be done to address the main problems of speeding, overtaking and the lack of pavements or pathways in the village.

She said she would ideally like entrance gateways at either end of the village, similar to the ones at Sourton and Lake which are on the same A386 road, pathways so people can walk safely from one end to the other or at the very least have no overtaking signs put in place.

She said: ‘When I first moved to Mary Tavy from London I was so shocked at the speed of the traffic through the village. I contacted the highways department at that time but they said there was nothing that could be done because there had been no fatalities recorded — I really thought then that we wouldn’t be staying because it wasn’t safe but my children had settled into the school and we had renovated our house so we decided to stay.

‘I live in the 40mph zone towards the moors and overtaking is a huge problem in that area.

‘I think people see it as a drive-through not a village. Having talked to other mums from the primary school, everyone has expressed concerns about the traffic speed. Most people would like to see the speed limit changed to 30mph all the way through.

‘There are mums that don’t let their children use the zebra crossing on their own because it is too dangerous. My kids are six and seven and I have a dog — it would take 20 minutes to walk them to school but instead I get in my car and drive them because there are no pathways and it is too dangerous. There is no pavement outside the main village shop, there is no pathway to the park or to the school field — it would be nice to walk safely from one end of the village to the other. If it was made more safe people would be less inclined to drive everywhere.’

Nina said that the speed limit was 60mph when entering the village at the Mary Tavy Inn and there were numerous accidents on the bend just before the pub caused by people heavily applying their breaks before the 30mph zone and people waiting to turn down the road next to the pub.

She set up the Facebook page last week in a bid to get local people to share their experiences of passing traffic along the A386 and open up discussion as to what people think could be done to make the village more safe.

She has since contacted Devon County Highways for data on incidents that have been recorded in the village and has asked the local speedwatch scheme for recent figures.

On Friday (September 30), she went out herself to record the volume of traffic passing.

She said: ‘I decided to do a volume of traffic log. For half an hour between 1.30pm and 2pm, we had 199 cars, 29 transit vans, 10 lorries, six motorbikes and one caravan pass through our village. Five cars overtook at high speed, all going out of the village. Twice when it was a lorry, not one but two cars overtook and moments later vehicles passed on the opposite side!’

Nina hopes to gain support for this initiative and plans to start a petition to have something done about the issues.

The Mary Tavy Jubilee Group, a community charity for the village, is supporting the campaign. A spokesperson for the group said: ‘While Mary Tavy is not unique in having problems of speed and a high density of traffic passing through the village, if there is an easy solution to the problems no one seems to have found it up to now, despite many attempts over the years. But surely every effort must be made to find that solution and everyone would agree it should not take death to improve the situation.

‘It’s great that a member of the public has brought local people together and is keen to work with the jubilee group, the parish council and others to create a safe environment for road users and pedestrians.’

Mary Tavy Parish Council is due to discuss the campaign at its meeting next week. Vice chairman Michael Fife Cook said: ‘We fully support anything that will make the road through Mary Tavy safer for pedestrians.’