For five years, residents of a city centre community have campaigned for action to stop speeding drivers using a street as a rat-run. They suggested no entry road markings at one end, road bumps, and even bollards, so that it was accessible for cyclists only.
Great Marlborough Street, off Whitworth Street, in Manchester, has a 150-place nursery, and about 2,500 people live in the surrounding Macintosh Village area.
After a lengthy campaign, Manchester city council found the budget to do the work. But what they got for £47,000 has not impressed the locals - who claim it has done nothing to stop drivers hurtling through at more than 45mph going the wrong way down a one-way street.
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The council has spent £25,000 of the cash on four "street thumps", as described by a council traffic and road safety manager - and are a kind of low level - literally - speed bump. But one resident described the 25mm "speed cushion" as "a yellow line on some tarmac shavings", and say residents wanted bollards to prevent traffic using the road completely or proper sleeping policemen humps to slow it down.
Video evidence collected by locals shows a blue car zipping down Great Marlborough Street at 47 mph in the wrong direction. Another clip shows a skateboarder sailing over the "thump" without having to slow down at all. Residents say they have numerous other clips show vehicles moving at speed without, slowing at all, down the street.
A spokesman for the Macintosh Village Residents Group said: “Following a campaign by M.E.N., local residents and MP Lucy Powell over FIVE years we are gobsmacked that £47,500 and five years has been spent waiting for no road markings , no illuminated signs and speed bumps to slow “majority of vehicles” are a UK first “speed thumps”.
"Its laughable to see a lad on a skateboard attempt to ride the Manchester Council speed thumps. Manchester Council must have serious waste if this has cost £47,500 and taken five years. We hope they [the council] will add the correct line markings and the promised speed bumps. Its clear with the evidence and speeds they are required.”
A spokesperson for Manchester City Council said: "The one-way scheme along Great Marlborough Street, as well as the road thumps which have been put in place are part of an experimental programme to prevent its use as a through road between Oxford Street and the Mancunian Way. The effectiveness of this scheme will be regularly reviewed by the Council, with the door open for small changes to be made if the circumstances require."
