SPROSTON Parish Council has once again hit a speed bump in its efforts to get Cheshire West and Chester Council (CWAC) to reduce the speed limit on the A54 Holmes Chapel Road.

CWAC’s head of place operations Maria Byrne has turned down an invitation to see firsthand the apparent speeding problems along the road.

The parish council has been campaigning to get the speed limit reduced from 40mph to 30mph through Sproston and after a letter from CWAC’s Maria Byrne earlier this month claimed the borough council had found ‘no evidence of speeding’ on the A54, parish councillors asked if she would join them in taking a walk along the busy road.

Cllr Jim McKechnie, member of Sproston Parish Council, said: “None but the brave would walk or cycle down this road. To experience why, we would like to invite Ms Byrne to walk with us along the very narrow ribbon of tarmac that serves as a footpath on this road.

"The air pressure from the bow wave of the lorries passing can at times have you grabbing hold of the bushes for fear of being blown into the carriageway.”

Ms Byrne declined the invitation and indicated that several meetings had already been carried out with Sproston Parish Council.

She said: “The invitation for a meeting has been declined because experienced officers have carried out detailed assessments of the road.

“Following a request from Sproston Parish Council in November last year, we carried out a speed assessment on the road.

“In December there was a meeting between the parish council, police and ourselves in which we explained that a section between Parkside House and 1 The Cottages partially met the national criteria for 30mph but this section would require significant engineering measures to reduce the average vehicle speeds which, on a major principal road would create traffic congestion and increased noise and pollution.

“Therefore this will mean that the speed on the rest of Holmes Chapel Road will remain at 40mph.

“To further help the parish council we carried out another assessment in March this year on the derestricted section of the A54 between Middlewich and Sproston.

“This assessment gave the recommendation to reduce the speed limit on the existing derestricted section from 60mph to 50mph which will be implemented at a later date.”