Community event

PRESS RELEASE
Monday 16th April 2007

“How many more people have to die?”

NATIONALLY 3000 people die on the roads each year. Locally 70 people are killed on Cheshire’s roads. That’s more than one person a week. Is this acceptable?

Cheshire’s public agencies* think this is 100% unacceptable, that one road death is one too many. They have decided to step up their campaign against road death by officially joining forces so that they can maximise the resources available to them.

Signing a document of declaration**, local authority chiefs, including Chief Constable, Peter Fahy, and Cheshire County Council Chief Executive, Jeremy Taylor, gave their seal of approval and full support to the set-up of the Cheshire (-wide) Safer Roads Partnership
(CSRP) at a conference launch this month.

Lee Murphy, Partnership Manager, said:
“We don’t want anyone to be hurt on Cheshire’s/Halton’s/Warrington’s roads - our target is in fact zero. We see the tragedy of road death and injuries all too closely in the roles that we do. There is no doubt in our minds that one road death is one too many. It is for this reason that we have decided to combine our funding, time and efforts - to stop preventable road death and injuries.”

Phil Johnson, Chair of CSRP (and Head of Transportation for Warrington Borough Council) explains why road death and injury is so tragic:
“Alarmingly, the overwhelming majority of casualties on our roads are caused by road users themselves, either through misjudgment, impairment or plain bad practice. Road death and injury is largely preventable.”

CSRP aims to increase the safety of Cheshire’s roads through targeted enforcement, education and engineering programmes.

“The delivery of this alone is not enough”, Lee Murphy, Partnership Manager, stressed. “CSRP will seek to work closely with the public to address road death as without their support CSRP are fighting a lost battle.

Each and every one of us has a part to play in creating safer roads. Road death will not stop unless the public join the stand against it. As road users we can not and should not shun our responsibility because road death is for life.”

ENDS

Notes to Editor:

*The public agencies signed up to CSRP are:
Cheshire County Council, Warrington Borough Council, Halton Borough Council, Cheshire Police, Cheshire Fire and Rescue, Her Majesty’s Court Service and the Highways Agency.

**The document of declaration read:

Our challenge
A large proportion of death and serious injury occurring on the roads of Cheshire, Halton and Warrington should be preventable. Road conditions and other factors not directly within the individual's control do play a part of these tragedies. The overwhelming majority of road crashes, however, are caused by road users themselves, either through misjudgement, impairment or bad practice.

Our belief
The Cheshire Safer Roads Partnership finds this situation unacceptable. The Partnership believes that the community would agree that one casualty on the road is one too many, that avoidable death and injury is unacceptable.

Our commitment

The Partnership will work together with the Cheshire community to minimise death and serious injury due to road crashes. This can be achieved by changing behaviour and attitudes through enforcement, education, training, publicity and engineering.

Photograph Caption: Representatives from authorities operating across Cheshire, Halton and Warrington, formally declared their commitment and support to the Cheshire Safer Roads Partnership.

Pictured left to right: Stuart Lovatt (The Highways Agency), Mandy Livesley (Her Majesty's Court Service), Phil Johnson (Warrington Borough Council), Jeremy Taylor (Cheshire County Council), Peter Fahy (Cheshire Constabulary), Chris Turnock (Cheshire Fire & Rescue), Howard Cockcroft (Halton Borough Council) and Mike Fawcett (Department for Transport). 

The conference launch event was sponsored by KeyMed Ltd and Edmund Nuttall Ltd.