More on Hatherton bends incidents

Local resident Kevan Holt has been so concerned about what he describes as 'scores' of incidents on the Hatherton bends, mainly on one particular bend, that he was in regular correspondence three years ago with Cheshire police about the issue.

Following recent reports, and the photo seen here, he dropped off his file of letters with the police at AudlemOnline HQ recently.

In a letter to Cheshire Constabulary HQ in Winford in March 2013, Kevan wrote about the bends saying: "They happen frequently at the same bend. There have been scores of accidents there over the past years. I am sure your officers put this down to driving too fast, poor driving, etc, etc.

"They are no doubt contributing factors but these accidents happen on the same bend. That particular bend is inherently dangerous and I believe deeper investigation is necessary. These same drivers have negotiated many other bends so why this one?

"The accidents happen to drivers going from Audlem to Nantwich and when approaching the bend it seems fairly normal, it is a right hander, but the camber is all wrong, the road leans away and is worst right at the apex. The hedgerow is a solid banking so a slight misjudgement and the car clips the banking and flips over."

Kevan then added: "In my view the the bend needs simply building up for a stretch of 15 – 20 metres."

After a lengthy delay, a police inspector replied on 27th June, saying: "I agree with you that the road layout/design does appear to be a significant causatory factor in many of these incidents – a conclusion supported by the number of one vehicle collisions that take place."

The police inspector then added that Cheshire Highways had been supplied with the police figures and that the police had requested a meeting to discuss possible engineering solutions and saying they, the police, "will be making urgent representations that this particular stretch needs urgent attention."

A meeting did take place in July 2013 and the police sent a further letter to Kevan Holt describing the action that had been agreed, saying: "We have met with Cheshire East Highways and they agreed to undertake work on the bends to improve things. Specifically they are going to scrape back the carriageway where the bank has slipped down onto the road surface, place a solid white line along the road edge, review the signage and look to place some additional slow signs on approaches and finally look into putting down solid white lines along the centre of the carriageway.

The police letter concluded: "We did discuss the camber on the road and also the possibility of High Friction dressing on the road surface but this is apparently not possible due to the costs involved."

Given the number of accidents does not seem to have reduced since the double white lines etc were introduced, maybe another look at the camber and High Friction dressing would be worthwhile because it's only a matter of time before a flipped car gets hit by another vehicle resulting in a possible fatality or fatalities.

Our thanks to Kevan Holt for all the information he has supplied.

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