Another A29 camera to answer protests

The Sussex Safety Roads Partnership officers are monitoring the traffic along the A29 Shripney Road to see if a second camera should be installed. The stretch of the road under scrutiny is the 40mph single carriageway from just south of Shripney Lane to just north of the Marigolds residential park.

The investigation is being carried out by a radar contained in a box rather than the old-fashioned strips across a road previously used.

Ken Seymour, the partnership's project manager, said a week's worth of data would be analysed to find out how fast vehicles were being driven along the road.

This information would be combined with accident statistics and facts about the road's surroundings to produce a verdict about whether a camera was justified. 'We can't do this in isolation,' he stated. 'We have to look at all the relevant information, such as the last three years of accident statistics, to see if this area meets the criteria for a camera and work with the police and the local council.

'It could be a fixed or a mobile camera. But we have over a hundred sites on our priority list, though we will continue to monitor the site even if it does not match the criteria.'

RoadPeace campaigner Doris Sumpter welcomed the formal investigation into road conditions along that stretch of the A29.

She said Shripney Road was closed for three hours from 8.30pm last Fridayafter a collision which involved three motorcyclists. Two ambulances were seen to be in attendance. Mrs Sumpter has collected a petition of more than 100 names calling for a camera to be installed. She expects to hand the list to Bognor Regis and Littlehampton MP Nick Gibb who she has met to discuss her campaign.

'We had 98 per cent of the people we asked signing the petition,' she said. 'This road is Bognor's answer to grand prix. It's a total race track along here. 'I've spoken to people who have waited half an hour to cross the road because it is so dangerous. Vehicles must frequently be doing 50-60mph through here.'

Mrs Sumpter, who has lived off Shripney Road since last August, said the conditions meant mothers were frightened to let their older children even walk along the road's sole uneven, unlit and overgrown footpath. Elderly residents also felt they were taking their lives into their own hands when they ventured on to the road. The A29 already has one fixed speed camera outside the John Wiley premises on its dual carriageway section to the south.