Road death of student brings call for ‘immediate’ speed cameras
CALLS HAVE been made for speed cameras to be installed “immediately” on a road where an 18-year-old was struck by a car and killed.
Kate Whalley died last month after she was hit by a black Ford Fiesta ST on the A660 near the junction with Old Pool Bank at Pool-in-Wharfedale, near Otley.
Campaigning residents have been calling for speed cameras to be installed on the road for about two years. Kate’s father, Michael, 54, asked a Leeds City Council highway’s representative for traffic-calming measures to be installed on the A660 at a Poolin-Wharfedale Parish Council meeting a year ago.
Pool-in-Wharfedale Parish Council’s chairwoman, Coun Hazel Lee, has now written to Leeds City Council’s chief executive Tom Riordan to call for action to be taken.
She wrote: “The (parish) council is left deeply frustrated at the lack of any action from the highways department at Leeds City Council. Parish councillors are calling for the immediate installation of speed cameras to slow down traffic.”
A Leeds City Council spokeswoman offered the authority’s “deepest condolences” to Mr Whalley and his family for the loss of his daughter.
Council officers have met residents and councillors on several occasions in recent years to “discuss a range of highways issues”, according to the spokeswoman, and Coun Lee’s comments will now be passed on to the West Yorkshire Casualty Reduction Partnership, which is responsible for the location of speed cameras.
A casualty reduction partnership spokeswoman said no decision will be made until police inquiries had concluded.
Harrogate Grammar School student Miss Whalley had caught a bus home after sitting her penultimate A-level exam when she was involved in the collision just after 4.30pm on June 22.
The Fiesta driver, a 22-year-old man from Harrogate, was arrested and released pending further inquiries.