Police to monitor speeding on A50 Manchester Road, Knutsford

The A50 Manchester Road has been the scene of three fatal crashes in the last five years, along with a number of other serious collisions.

A petition to reduce the 60mph section near Cottons Hotel to 50mph in 2019 was shunned by police at the time, while there are also concerns about the 40mph section of road between the Heath and Sugar Pit Lane.

Cllr Stewart Gardiner, town mayor, urged Sgt Craig Hodson of Cheshire Police’s Knutsford community beat team to reconsider the issue at Monday’s Knutsford Town Council meeting.

Cllr Stewart Gardiner

He said: “Cheshire East Council had a proposal to reduce it to 50mph and that was not supported by the police on the grounds of evidence.

“I would hope, as a new sergeant, you might want to revisit that situation and see what you might be able to do to alleviate it.”

The mayor added that the 60mph stretch is the only section of the A50 to have such a high speed limit between Knutsford and Lymm Services – while he also called for a speed cut on the 40mph zone.

Cllr Peter Coan warned that ‘very little seems to be done’ to resolve the issue at Manchester Road – which has several entrances including for Cottons, Fryers Garden Centre and Guy Salmon Land Rover – despite the recent fatal crashes.

Cllr Peter Coan

He added: “On the roads approaching Knutsford that have had the speed limits reduced, there has been no history of deaths to my knowledge, and on the road entering Knutsford that hasn’t had the speed limit reduced we have seen a significant amount of deaths.

“I think that any road that suffers a single death should be subject to a review of the causes of that death and if speed is a contributory factor, then the speed limit of that road should be examined in detail.

“We seem to be meeting resistance to have the speed limit reduced on that length of road and we are only talking about 300 or 400 yards. I don’t understand why, it’s clearly a hazardous area.”

Sgt Hodson admitted that speeding along Manchester Road was an issue raised by the community a few times and told councillors police would go out to monitor speeding for ‘evidence gathering over the next few weeks’.

He said: “In terms of the evidence for a change in speed – I am sure you are all aware that it is down to accident statistics and things like that.

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“But what we can certainly do down there is have some more visibility with our speed gun, our speed radar, we’ve got the opportunity to do that.

“And I would encourage more members of the public, if they have got concerns, to get in touch with us.”