Council chiefs say safety will be improved at a junction in Stoke-on-Trent where a man was hit by a car and killed last December.

A total of 1,185 people signed a petition calling for pedestrian crossings to be installed at the crossroads in Weston Coyney, following the death of Rob Bown shortly before Christmas.

Rob's friend Craig Royce presented the petition to Thursday's full council meeting at Stoke-on-Trent City Council, saying action had to be taken to prevent further tragedies. An emotional Craig talked about how Rob had been a huge loss to the community, and called for more to be done to protect pedestrians.

Cllr Finlay Gordon-McCusker, cabinet member for transport, told the meeting that improving safety at the junction between Caverswall Road, Park Hall Road and Weston Road was an 'absolute priority' for him. Highways officers have been carrying out traffic surveys at the junction, and modelling a potential four-way push button pedestrian crossing, although it is not yet known when such a scheme will go ahead.

Petition organiser, Craig Royce meets deputy council leader Councillor Amjid Wazir and MP Allison Gardner (LDRS).

Craig said it is currently very dangerous for pedestrians to cross the junction, with drivers often jumping the traffic lights and even mounting the kerb when turning. He said his own wife had a near miss when a vehicle narrowly missed the pram carrying their young child.

Craig said: "Rob grew up in the Weston Coyney area. It was very hard for the community to lose such a well-known individual. Rob played a huge part in everyone's life.

"Rob was a pedestrian, walking home. He was only yards away from home, on a walk he has been doing for the last 10 years. In Rob's memory, I want to make sure the risk of this ever happening again is dramatically reduced.

"We need to take road crime more seriously, and give it the deterrence it deserves. Road death and serious injury is preventable. Pedestrians are the most vulnerable road users and we need to do more to protect them and enable active travel."

Cllr Gordon-McCusker thanked Craig for his efforts and said that highways officers working 'at pace' to draw up a road safety scheme for the junction. He agreed that urgent safety improvements were needed. He said: "We visited the site with the ward councillors and local people, and I was personally, truly shocked to see how dangerous that crossing is, in such a busy and residential area, with shops and retail premises nearby. It was immediately obvious to me, as it would be to anyone who visits that area, that urgent intervention is needed.

Petition organiser, Craig Royce meets community leaders to discuss the issues at the crossing (LDRS).

"As cabinet member for transport, infrastructure and regeneration, it is an absolute priority for me and our highways team to deliver a road safety scheme in that area, because it's absolutely unquestionable that it is necessary."

Weston Coyney councillor Ross Irving believes the need to tackle the issue is even more urgent due to more young families moving into new estates in the area. He said: "It's obvious from the number of people who have signed this petition the strength of feeling in the area over the risks that people face crossing that road. The difficulty is that it's an old crossroads, with 1940s or 1950s road structure. It's narrow, there's hardly any footway, and the main A520 trunk road runs right through the middle of it.

"I hope we will progress this, that it won't just go into long discussions and we don't get anywhere. I have raised this issue over a period of time."

Conservative opposition leader Dan Jellyman questioned why the Weston Coyney scheme had not been included in the council's latest highways capital programme, approved earlier this year, given its importance.

Cllr Gordon-McCusker insisted that the council's Labour administration was committed to carrying out the scheme, and it would not be 'kicked into the long grass'. But he said the proper procedures, including public consultation, would need to be carried out.

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