Residents and campaigners are urging the council to address an “extremely dangerous” junction on a bustling Sheffield road.
The intersection between Carter Knowle Road and Ecclesall Road South, located near the Prince of Wales pub, has been without a pedestrian crossing for decades. One local resident recalls walking down the road in the 1960s and notes that the situation has only deteriorated since then.
Fed up with the ongoing issue, some residents, campaigners, and a local ward council member are now calling on Sheffield Council to take action. Cllr Peter Gilbert, a ward councillor in Ecclesall, described the junction as awful for pedestrians, despite Sheffield Council’s recent declaration of the city as pedestrian-friendly following a motion passed in the chamber.
However, he cautioned that if crossings were not properly planned, and forced people to cross elsewhere to avoid them, then Sheffield could not be considered a pedestrian-friendly city. He stated: “Local residents are out here today to send a message that we want the council to take action on this junction and junctions like it all across the city to make them safe for pedestrians.
“Everybody is a pedestrian at one point in their journey.”
Cllr Gilbert revealed that he had brought this matter to the council’s attention and mentioned the A625 Safer Road Scheme, a £1.6 million initiative funded by the central government to enhance safety in Ecclesall Road. He expressed appreciation for the new safe crossing at the Psalter Lane and Ecclesall Road junction, which had been a “very scary crossing point”.
However, he said the junction between Carter Knowle Road and Ecclesall Road has once again been ignored.
Tessa Lupton, a Green Party activist and local resident, said she was walking down from Ringinglow Road and she was “mapping out” how she was supposed to get to the Prince of Wales and meet everybody. “It’s scary,” she said. “If I was coming down with my children, I would be worried about their safety.”
She raised further concerns noting that there is no safe opportunity to cross the busy junction, posing risks particularly to visually impaired individuals despite tactile paving on the sidewalk. She said: “How on earth would they have a hope in crossing this road safely”.
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Ten-year-old Adam Bull, who lives near the trouble spot, said he wouldn’t dare to attempt crossing because of cars speeding from both sides, leaving him without a safe crossing option. He noted the danger when one set of traffic lights is red while the other is green, emphasising that “it’s not a safe time to cross it at all” and concluding, “It’s just extremely dangerous to try and cross it”.
Adam’s father, Tom Bull, shared his desire for his children to venture out independently and undertake activities safely; however, he lamented that “things like this are the reason they don’t”.
Cllr Ben Miskell, who chairs the transport regeneration and climate policy committee at Sheffield City Council, said: “We have ambitious plans to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured on Sheffield’s roads to zero and the installation of pedestrian crossings plays a role in that plan even if they affect journey times for traffic travelling through the area.
“We are in the process of targeting the most dangerous locations across the city and installing measures to make them as safe as possible for people to be able to walk or cycle. We want Sheffield to be a city where people have a choice in how they get around and making our roads and pavements as safe as possible will be key to achieving that.
“I understand the concerns of residents along Carter Knowle Road and Ecclesall Road South and the council’s officers will be assessing that location as soon as possible to see how safety can be improved.”
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