18 October 2021

Buckhurst Hill Green Party joins local safer roads campaign after third tragic death in eight years

• Over 1900 people – more than a third of local residents in Buckhurst Hill East Ward - sign online petition calling for traffic calming measures on major roads in Buckhurst Hill.
• Local campaigners call on Essex County Council and Essex Highways to improve street lighting and lay speed bumps on dangerous roads.

Local campaigners gather near to the spot of last Tuesday’s (12 October) accident in which a woman in her 20s was killed. Residents are calling on Essex Highways and Essex County Council to make local roads safer by introducing traffic calming measures across Buckhurst Hill.

Buckhurst Hill Green Party councillors met with local residents on Saturday (16 October) as they launched a campaign to make the area’s roads safer after a woman in her twenties was tragically killed in a collision with a car last week.

The woman, who has not yet been named by police, was involved in the collision on Buckhurst Way last Tuesday (12 October). She is the third person in eight years to have been killed on either Buckhurst Way or Loughton Way in the town in an accident involving a motorist(1). The following day (Wednesday 13 October)  a car traveling at speed on Loughton Way lost control and ended up on its roof. It was sheer luck that no-one was killed in this accident.

Since Tuesday’s tragedy, an online petition has been started by concerned local residents calling for traffic calming measures to be introduced along Buckhurst Way, Loughton Way and Roding Lane. The petition has already gained over 1,900 signatures - representing over a third of all the people that live in the Buckhurst Hill East Ward(2) - from people who have become fed up with speeding along the roads in the local area.

Buckhurst Way, Loughton Way, Roding Lane, Palmerston Road and the High Road in Buckhurst Hill are all known locally to be dangerous roads where speeding by motorists is frequent and where accidents occur regularly. At Saturday’s meeting Buckhurst Hill residents told Green Party Parish and District Councillors, Matthew West, Steven Neville, Simon Heap and Sarah Goodfellow, of numerous accidents or near misses they had experienced on the roads around the town.

Of particular concern to local residents is the fact that a stretch of road that begins in the London Borough of Redbridge, named Hillside Avenue, has adequate street lighting and speed bumps until it crosses the border into Essex and becomes Buckhurst Way, the location of last week’s accident. 

Local residents, with the support of the Buckhurst Hill Green Party, are now calling on Essex County Council and Essex Highways to take urgently needed action and make immediate improvements to Buckhurst Way, Loughton Way, the High Road and Roding Lane in order to make local roads safe.

Local campaigners have three immediate demands:

1. That Essex Highways immediately impose speed bumps to reduce the chances of cars speeding along Buckhurst Way, Loughton Way and Roding Lane.
2. That Essex Highways improve road crossings on Buckhurst Way, Loughton Way and Roding Lane and the High Road with the introduction of Zebra crossings.
3. That Essex County Council restore street lighting throughout Buckhurst Hill to improve visibility on roads at night, and in order to improve overall safety of local residents.

Buckhurst Hill Green Party leader, Steven Neville, said: “It is a simple fact that a road that starts in the neighbouring town of Woodford has adequate traffic calming measures and street lighting to keep local residents safe but that once you cross what is, after all, an invisible border into Essex those measures that keep local residents safe disappear too.

“What makes Tuesday’s tragedy worse is that it occurred less than 100 metres from where those traffic calming measures and adequate street lighting end – all because it is the border between Essex and London.

“It’s hard for local people to escape the feeling that the safety of their neighbours just a few metres away in Woodford matters more to Redbridge Borough Council than their own lives do to Essex County Council and Essex Highways.

“Essex County Council and Essex Highways have been asked repeatedly over the years to look at the issue of speeding in Buckhurst Hill and have done next to nothing to tackle the problem.

“As the online petition started by local residents shows, people have had enough of being ignored by Essex Highways and Essex County Council. It’s about time those responsible took action before someone else is killed.”