A father-of-three has launched a petition calling for traffic calming measures after his son's pet was hit by a car and died.

Rescue cat Forest was in Plover Road, Minster, near Coral Road on the Isle of Sheppey when it was hit and left for dead in the gutter. The cat later had to be put to sleep.

Dad-of-three Ben Johnson, 42, said: "I believe it is time for traffic calming measures to be in place to help slow down the traffic."

And he warned: "This time it was a cat. Next time it could be a child. The road is used as a race track. Had the car been going slower, Forest may have survived."

Forest was rescued as a kitten with his mother from the Cats Protection charity three years ago as a companion for Ben's nine-year-old son Freddie. The cat was hit on Monday evening at 7.30pm.

Ben, a design manager for a London hotel, said: "We heard later that the car didn't stop. Perhaps if it had been going slower, Forest would still be here."

Forest was found by a Domino's pizza delivery driver and taken to the PDSA vet in Gillingham.

Ben said: "The vet contacted us because Forest had been chipped. I went over to be with him as I thought that was the right thing to do. Unfortunately, he had a head trauma, a punctured lung and hardly any blood pressure so I agreed to have him put down. It was the kindest thing to do."

Ben ended up digging a grave for Forest in the back garden of his Brambles Close house at 11.30pm at night. The crash has also left him with a £900 vet's bill.

He added: "Forest was very timid at first. He had just started to trust people. I'm not sure how Freddie has taken the news. He is keeping it to himself."

Ben said: "Drivers treat the estate as a rat-run. You take your life in your hands, even when taking the children to school. There have been several crashes. You can always hear cars squealing round corners. Perhaps we need speed humps or a 20mph limit?"

Ben's online petition on change.org had 90 signatures this week. You can sign it here