A highway service manager with Somerset County Council has said that excessive speed is not a major reason for accidents on a busy Yeovil road.

The Clarion Advertiser reported recently that more than 160 people had signed a petition demanding action at Milford Road.

The petition was handed over to Yeovil Town Council which then invited county representatives to a meeting on November 20th.

A fairly stormy debate followed and it was eventually proposed that the county representative, chief technical officer David Monk, should investigate the costs for a speed cutting trial involving big flower pots at Milford Road.

But Mr Monk explained that he had no brief from the county council or anybody else to undertake such a job, which would cost a lot of money.

It was eventually decided to seek urgent permission from the county council to go ahead with the plant trial on Milford Road.

MP David Laws has since received a letter, dated November 27th, from highway service manager Geoff Dight.

Mr Dight did not mention anything about the proposed trial, and said it would be wrong to conclude that speed is a major factor.

"Our accident record show ten reported injury accidents over the past five years, he said. "Four of these occurred at the eastern end of Milford Road, where three involved turning movements and one involved a seven-year-old child running into the road from between parked cars.

"At the western end there has been one accident, which again involved a turning vehicle. Two accidents have occurred at the junction of Chelston Avenue and Milford Road and there has been one accident approximately midway along the road where vehicles travelling in opposite directions collided when attempting to pass a parked vehicle."

Mr Dight added that the two remaining incidents involved a child hit when crossing the road, and an intoxicated adult who fell into the path of a car.

He finished off his letter by saying: "There are no current proposals for a traffic calming scheme, but the town council are very anxious for action to be taken and will be requesting the county council to make funding available so that preliminary investigations and design work can be carried out."

Mr Dight did not specify exactly when this is likely to happen.