Safety calls after spate of A19 crashes near Hartlepool

Speaking at the latest Cleveland Fire Authority meeting, Cllr Lynn Hall, Stockton-on-Tees representative, raised concerns over a number of accidents occurring on the A19 in recent times.

A report from fire brigade chiefs outlined how they will be supporting National Road Victims month, which runs throughout August, as part of their work backing a variety of national campaigns.

Cllr Hall called for the authority to “tap into that” further with activities such as awareness days and more, following “quite a few nasty accidents” on the A19 in the past couple of weeks.

She also raised how roads will now be seeing increased traffic again, after they had previously been more quiet due to the impact of Covid-19 restrictions.

Speaking at Friday’s meeting, she said: “We’ve had quite a few quite nasty accidents on the A19 and some of our major roads are having lots of roadworks on at the moment.

“I think the community generally are quite worried about all the work that’s going on on some of our major roads.

“Let’s face it, we haven’t been driving for a year, so you’re out there in your car again and it’s quite daunting in some ways, and with the roadworks it does make it particularly tricky.”

Ian Hayton, chief fire officer at Cleveland Fire Brigade, responded by stating they have a road safety team who continue to work with partners on prevention measures, after acknowledging they will now be seeing more cars on the road again.

He said: “I think it ties very closely with the road safety team that we’ve got, so here we work on prevention.

“It isn’t a statutory responsibility of the authority, but we actually work on preventative activities to do with road safety and have a small road safety team.

“Actually we find working in partnership with all the other agencies involved with that has actually produced some results.”

He also noted they will be supporting the annual Project E.D.W.A.R.D (Every Day Without A Road Death) during its action week from 13 – 17 September.

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