THE number of heavy goods vehicles passing through Studley at night has got to such a level that local campaigner Nicky Edden, unable to sleep, counted 80 going past her house between 1am and 2am in the morning.
And on Tuesday, together with other residents fed with the volume of traffic on the A435 Birmingham Road and campaigning councillors, she helped hammer out the way forward for the Studley Traffic Focus Group.
“If we are being realistic we know we will never get a bypass but there are other ways we can try to dissuade HGV drivers to take an alternative route,” she said.
The group has found that many of the HGVs originate from the Evesham area, and instead of going back on themselves to join the M5 they head north along the A435 to join the M42 at junction 3.
With figures showing the speed camera on the Alcester to Studley side of the A435 recording 8,879 cases of speeding in one given year, the group’s idea is to have the village covered by average speed cameras.
These could be sited from Spernal and up Node Hill on the one side of the Studley triangle and along the A435 on the other.
Advised by county councillor Clive Rickards (Lib Dem, Studley) and district councillor Hazel Wright (Lib Dem, Studley & Sambourne) the group will also write to the Local Enterprise Partnership for Coventry and Warwickshire, which has influence over how infrastructure money is spent, to Redditch MP Karen Lumley voicing their concerns over the Redditch Eastern Gateway and the impact that would have on Studley and Mappleborough Green, and also to the planning chief at Stratford district council over the impact of the Eastern Gateway development.
Campaigner James Gould said: “We need to get everyone behind us because this is a problem that is not going to go away and indeed it will get worse.
As long as thee is nothing stopping these drivers they will simply carry on doing it.”
