Access road safety fears

SAFETY concerns have been raised over the access road to a major Caister homes development.

Villagers have contacted Caister Parish Council because they feared cars pulling away from the unadopted access road to developer Bloor Homes' building site could be involved in an accident with traffic heading along West Road.

The unnamed access road comes off West Road, but there are no signs or road markings warning motorists pulling out from the development site that they are approaching a junction.

Parish councillor Peter Parker raised the residents' concerns at a council meeting on Monday .

On Wednesday , he said there was very little that could be done about the situation because the parish council did not have the power to install signs, which were the responsibility of the county council's highways department once it had adopted the road.

He added: “It is still officially designated a building site and there is not a lot we can do about it. But Bloors have sold a lot of the properties and you have got cars coming out when it should really be a building site. Bloors still own the site so it is technically private property.”

Bloor Homes is still building the 150 new homes on the site, but the construction work has attracted controversy, especially early in October when residents in neighbouring Queensway and West Road complained about dust coming from the site onto their properties during high winds.

Glenn Buck, the borough council's community protection manager, warned the developer it could be fined �20,000 under environment protection laws if the dust was not controlled better.

John Birchall, spokesman for the county council's highways department, said: “What happens in terms of adoption is that the developer has to bring it up to the standard required by the highways department before it can take over maintenance.”