Petition rules delay safety measures on death route Only 8,717 out of 26,000 are valid signatures, says council
NEW safety measures at the scene of a horrific crash which killed six people could be delayed because of council rules on petitions.
The three-car crash in an underpass in Belgrave Middleway, near Edgbaston, happened at about 1am on December 17.
But relatives of the victims may now have to wait longer before the installation of safety barriers or speed cameras are debated meaningfully by Birmingham City Council due to the authority’s rules on petitions.
Father-of-six Imtiaz Mohammed, aged 33, who was driving a taxi, died in the carnage, as did his two passengers; sign language interpreter Lucy Davis, 43, and her scientist boyfriend Lee Jenkins, 42.
The other three victims – Kasar Jehangir, 25, Tauqeer Hussain, 26 and Mohammed Fahsha, 30 – were travelling in an Audi involved in the crash.
A petition was launched calling for the city council to install speed cameras and crash barriers on Belgrave Middleway “to help save the lives of future motorists on this dangerous stretch of road”. More than 26,000 people backed the campaign which would normally trigger a full council debate. But the council has now stated that only 8,717 of the signatures were valid because the rest came from people outside Birmingham and “around the world”. It means the matter will instead be put before the council’s business management committee on Tuesday, but they will only decide if it should be taken further. A report for the meeting said: “The petition had a number of signatures from people in other parts of the country and a number from around the world which could not be counted as valid. It is estimated that there were approximately 26,880 signatures on the petition which would have been over the threshold for consideration at city council. “However, as a significant number of those could not be counted, the petition has 8,717 valid signatures which is over the threshold for consideration at this committee to determine whether it should be debated at an overview and scrutiny committee or city council or not.” Edgbaston MP Preet Gill (Labour) has backed the petition. She said: “It hit the headlines nationally because it was a death before Christmas, just really tragic.
“The level of feeling is really evident in that petition with the amount of people who signed it. A lot of people would not have understood the council processes about being from outside of Birmingham.
“Obviously the families have been in touch wanting updates. I have every sympathy with them.
“It is very distressing
The families don’t want anybody else to go through what they have had to endure
for them and they don’t want anybody else to through what they have had endure.”
The council previously stated it would be unable to make any decision on the matter until West Midlands Police had completed its own investigation, which a force spokeswoman said was ‘complex’ and still ‘on-going’.
Full inquest hearings into the deaths of the six victims are still scheduled to resume at Birmingham Coroner’s Court on Tuesday, May 29 and Wednesday May 30. go to