Britain's most improved road receives Royal Award
Kent County Council has won a Prince Michael International Road Safety Award for Britain’s most improved road.
For nearly a decade, Britain has been among pathfinding nations in seeking to measure systematically the risk posed to road users from road infrastructure. Since 2002, the Road Safety Foundation (RSF) has been mapping the rate of death and serious injury on Britain’s roads annually applying the protocols developed through the European and International Road Assessment Programmes (EuroRAP in Europe). Each year an award goes to the authority with the most improved road.
The most improved route in 2016 is the A227 between Tonbridge High Street and Borough Green in Kent. It is a 2-lane single carriageway, corridor of 12km through countryside, towns and villages.
Cheshire East Council and Cheshire Road Safety Group has also been awarded for road safety improvements made to the A537 "Cat and Fiddle".
For years, the A537 Macclesfield to Buxton road has had a history of incidents, many involving high powered motor cycles. Often ranked as the highest risk road in the UK EuroRAP surveys. A decision to implement rearward facing average speed cameras. The first time that they have been used on a remote rural road with long straights, sweeping bends, tight corners and varying gradients over moors. Together with other measures such as reduction in speed limit, high friction surfacing high visibility warning signs, red warning surface dressing, motorcycle friendly barriers, enforcement signage, carriageway widening and mobile camera deployment, casualties have reduced.
