Wisbech On TV.......Again

Wisbech found itself featured on prime time tv for the third time in as many years last week when Wisbech featured in 'Britain's killer Roads'.

It focussed on the A1101 between Wisbech & Long Sutton & catalogued a sorry tale of council denial, mistakes & downright imcompetence.

It featured a couple who live on the 'Gypsy Bends' & their struggle, to no avail to get the council to do something about the continual stream of cars, complete with dead or seriously injured drivers, that were ending up in their front garden.  The story then moved on to Roy Ashton who together with his wife were involced in a head on collision at the site.  Roy's wife Sue sadly died in this accident & Roy then devoted himself to getting the council to do something included a campaign with leaflets & days of action.

Roy also pushed for the release of accident data for the road.  This nfinally arrived as 64 pages of almost indecipherable statistics which he asked a couple of friends to try & interpret.  They took on the task & revealed something truly shocking.  In a very short space of time there were 22 accidents involving 36 injuries, 11 Serious & 7 Deaths.  This was all in the space of 850 metres or roughly half a mile in old money!!!

Empowered by this info the campaign worked tirelessly to batter the council, who seemed very reluctant to do anything, into submission after endless meetings.  It came to a head when the campaign got onto the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2.  When the BBC called the council for their comments they informed the BBC that the work had been approved & was going to start soon at a cost of £350,000......all news to the campaign!!!

The upshot, & happy ending is that since the work there hasn't been a single accident on that stretch proving that the road was not fit for purpose & not allowing the council & police to use their lazy 'speeding drivers' get out.

Well done to all involved.