Concerns over safety on Dundrum’s streets

Concerns over safety on Dundrum’s streets

30 November 2011 - by JOANNE FLEMING

CHILDREN could be killed or seriously injured along Dundrum’s Main Street, police have been warned.

Speeding cars and vehicles failing to stop for school crossing patrols will result in an accident, according to the parents and politicians who appealed for PSNI help at a meeting of Down District Policing Partnership (DPP) on Thursday.

The traffic problems raised at the meeting in Dundrum Parish Hall included speeding cars along Main Street from Clough and Newcastle, problems with traffic entering the village from the Dromara Road and congestion arising from the village’s popular car boot sale.

One Dundrum mother said road safety problems occurred at 2pm and 3pm as children left Sacred Heart Primary School.

“The traffic won’t stop to allow the children to cross,” she said. “Twenty cars will go by before they let the children cross the road.”

Another parent said: “For seven years we have been raising it. We are not happy.”

“Does somebody have to be injured or killed?” another asked. One parent commented: “I find Roads Service impossible to work with.”

Councillor Carmel O’Boyle agreed that the situation was perilous and needed urgent attention.

“This is a fatal accident waiting to happen,” she said.

Councillor Willie Clarke said he had been campaigning for 10 years on the issue and councillor Eamonn O’Neill said the case for intervention was a “moral” one, and the current situation “disgraceful”.

Councillor Billy Walker said it was a case of campaigning to change the Roads Service’s criteria for intervention, as had previously been done in Killyleagh.

DPP member John Huddleston also requested an occasional police presence on the road to help with school crossings.

Area Commander Chief Inspector Deirdre Bones said this could only be done on a “very irregular basis”.

She noted hedges had been trimmed in the area to improve visibility, car boot organisers had opened a new car park and police would be carrying out laser speed detections in the area in the near future.

Paul Symington of the 

PSNI’s Traffic Branch pointed out it was a highway code offence not to stop for a school crossing patrol and said he had had several discussions with Roads Service over the problems in the village.