Safety work to start at fatal crash site
WORK to make a dangerous accident blackspot safer is set to be carried out - nearly two years after a six-year-old girl tragically died in a car crash there.
Road safety improvements costing £100,000 at Crookilley Way, near the sliproad to the M60’s Bredbury junction, have been planned by Stockport council.
Aleeza Ahmed died in July 2015 following an accident on this stretch of road. At her inquest 12 months ago, then coroner John Pollard told the council safety needed to be ‘looked at carefully’.
She had been travelling in a car driven by dad Hussain, which slid on a bend, hit a steep kerb and flipped over as it crossed the central reservation, landing upside down on a car coming the other way.
This was one of 55 accidents with casualties on Crookilley Way and Ashton Road, which it joins, in the five years between 2011 and 2016.
The inquest heard the ‘peculiar’ layout of roundabouts and sliproads could affect the stability of vehicles and steep kerbs helped flip the car.
Mr Pollard said: “If a barrier were in place at this junction it has a very good chance of preventing the severity of incidents. That might have prevented this.”
The accident record at Crookilley Way and Ashton Road has it become Stockport’s top road safety priority.
Should work be approved it will include a central reservation barrier between the two roundabouts and the speed limit on Crookilley Way going from 50mph to 40mph.
Mr Hussain, from Oldham, has questioned the quality of the road surface and the possibility it could have caused the accident.
The inquest was told the road was not defective. But since the fatal accident the council has installed high-grip surfacing.
Speaking afterwards Mr Hussain said: “I am happy the coroner mentioned the junction (safety).
“If the road is adequate why would the council go to the trouble of resurfacing it?”
A report estimates the proposed work will prevent at least 33 per cent of accidents.
Most of the funding will come from the Greater Manchester Casualty Reduction Partnership and has been agreed in principle ahead of rubber stamping next month.
There would then be a three week consultation and, assuming no objections, the necessary traffic orders can be made and the work carried out.
Councillor Sheila Bailey, Stockport Council’s executive member for communities and housing, said: “The Council made an application to the Greater Manchester Casualty Reduction Partnership in 2016 to fund the Crookilley Way scheme. Whilst the Council has an agreement in principle for the funding, the money to build the scheme will not be available until April 2017.
“The Council has progressed the scheme to Preliminary Design and advertised Traffic Regulation Orders needed for it, with the intention of delivering the works this autumn.”