During the campaign, West Sussex County Council assessed the junction too dangerous for a lollipop person, yet refuse community requests for speed reduction, pedestrian or zebra crossing measures.

A demonstration is being held on Friday 3 July for the community to impress upon the council they will not give up and demand urgent action. Local MP Tom Rutland is expected to attend, as are local Green and Labour councillors.

For five years, local community members together with Downsbrook and Whytemead School representatives have campaigned for improved road safety at one of Broadwater’s busiest roundabouts at which traffic flows constantly at peak hours.

The site is a critical access point to the local trading estate, used frequently by ten wheeled vehicles.

The roundabout also forms the junction for three critical arteries between the A27 and the town centre. This results in an extremely difficult and stressful mission for school children and their families to cross safely on a daily basis, and results in residents using cars rather than walk to school.

Local campaigners have so far followed West Sussex County Council instructions to make a Community Highways Application for a crossing only to recently be told that their application failed.

Val Knight, one of the prime movers of the campaign, is a concerned grandmother who said :

“When taking my young grandchild to school, I felt like I’d lost the ability to cross the road safely. Having lived in Brighton for 40 years, I wasn’t used to such fast and unregulated traffic. Apparently, numerous previous attempts to improve road safety around the schools had failed. We’ve brought the community together to demand a safer solution, and have the support of the eight local schools whose pupils use this junction on a daily basis.”

WSCC have said that Sussex Police road casualty records show no history of casualties at this location. However residents are not willing to wait until a child is injured! WSCC has committed to undertaking a PV2 assessment later in the year and advised us to participate in yet another system to raise funding for a crossing through the Schools Active Travel Scheme.

The community campaign group are not willing to wait any longer. Near misses happen on a weekly basis.

Friday’s demonstration will demand safety for the children of Broadwater urgently and an end to WSCC’s endless prevarication.