A DELABOLE resident has issued an urgent plea for some form of traffic calming in the village before someone is killed by a passing vehicle.

David Cox, 69, moved to the village in 2004, and started to lobby councillors and MPs in 2012 about the seriousness of the traffic problems.

As you travel through the village from the Camelford direction, there are a number of cars parked along the High Street on the left hand side.

Vehicles have to move out into the oncoming lane to pass the parked cars, but frequently there are already vehicles coming from the opposite direction, which causes the build-up of traffic.

To allow both sets of vehicles to pass, some are forced to mount the pavement, and in the summer, when there is a lot more through traffic, the problem is worse.

It was in March 2015, that Mr Cox was, himself, hit by a vehicle as he walked along the High Street.

He explained: "A car mounted the pavement and pushed me onto the grass verge. I fell over and I was slightly injured but I’m a resilient person. A mother and her children might not be."

Mr Cox recalled that around five years ago, before Cornwall Council became a unitary authority, a suggestion box was placed in the local SPAR shop asking residents for suggestions to help alleviate the problem.

Mr Cox, as well as others, suggested staggered parking, which, he believed, was adopted, but after notices were put up informing residents where they could and could not park, the idea was not welcomed and was subsequently dropped.

"Because the residents kicked up about it, Cornwall Council dropped the whole idea and there’s been nothing done since.

“We’ve had feasibility study after feasibility study and nothing gets done. I want to get something done before somebody’s life is taken away or totally destroyed. The most obvious thing to do would be to put in traffic lights.”

Mr Cox has written to the former MP for North Cornwall Dan Rogerson, the current MP, Scott Mann, Cornwall Council, CORMAC and he has spoken with Cornwall Councillor for St Teath and St Breward Ward, Dominic Fairman.

After Mr Cox was knocked down he received a reply to one of his letters from a CORMAC Highways Manager who said he was sorry to hear of the incident, but added: “Unfor­tunately, the council does not have the funding necessary to imple­ment the measures you have proposed [traffic lights]. It is illegal to drive along a footway and, as you have done, such behaviour should be reported to the police.”

Mr Cox said: “There have been several accidents here but nobody has been killed. Are they waiting for somebody to be killed before they do something about it?”

Mr Cox felt that staggered parking could be possible, to give passing cars somewhere to pull into when faced with oncoming traffic, by making private areas of land off the High Street into laybys for residents without private parking.

“Any vehicles coming up cannot see that this road is clear so they’re forced on the wrong side of the road. When all the parking spaces are taken, they’ve got nowhere to pull in and the vehicles coming down here have nowhere to pull in. It’s a nightmare.

“We need something that will ease the traffic flow through Delabole High Street. At the moment a lot of people avoid Delabole because of the traffic problems in the summer, and those that do come through mean that pedestrians are put at risk.”

Dominic Fairman, Cornwall Councillor for the St Teath and St Breward Ward, told the Post that he has lobbied Cornwall Council to carry out a report that looks at several areas of Delabole, including the junction at the top of Pengelly and the High Street.

Cllr Fairman has presented some early plans to St Teath Parish Council and added: “I hope by the end of the year to have everybody behind the solution. I’m optimistic that it will be an actual solution. I’m on it and it will happen.”