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Plan to make Beach Street bend safer moves forward

Deal Town Council has pledged cash to the county council in a bid to improve the safety of Beach Street.

Councillors voted in favour of supporting the move but changed the wording from a handout "of up to £5,000” to a “proportionate financial contribution”.

Cllr Ian Kilbery who proposed the amended recommendation, said: “This is too much of an important matter to our town. For the sake of our community, let’s get something done there. It’s important that something is not just done, but it is done well.”

Beach Street in Deal
Beach Street in Deal

This movement comes after Kent Highways proposed no further action for changes to the road, following the results of a traffic speed survey. The survey discovered the general speed of vehicles is below 30mph and therefore within the current speed limit, despite KentOnline poll findings which discovered 89% of readers thought the bend was dangerous.

Kent county councillor Mike Eddy said: “We are grateful that the town council said that they are happy to support the programme.

“KCC say the crash record is not serious enough for them to invest large quantities of money such as traffic lights or 20mph zones, but they might think about putting in different road surfaces, colour surfaces or slow signs.”

He added: “We are faced with problems here. It’s slap bang against the conservation area on one side and the sea on the other. Whatever we do could ruin the view or have bad implications for the conservation area. We’re looking at a far more complex situation.”

With money now potentially available from three pots; KCC’s mainstream funding, Kent County Councillors Members’ Highways fund and Deal Town Councils capital fund, Cllr Eddy feels chances of bringing about change are increased.

Cllr Eddy said: “There is a potential scheme which we are discussing with Highways officers.

“The next stage would be an initial costing of the job.”

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