gulworTHY Parish Council is planning to resurface and upgrade a muddy layby opposite the village school in the latest bid to solve road safety problems when children are dropped off.

Councillors meeting on Monday night voted to take up their local borough councillor Peter Crozier’s offer of some money towards resurfacing the layby.

Clerk Emily Young told the council that Cllr Crozier, one of the borough councillors for the Bere peninsula, had offered £250 still remaining from his locality budget to spend on projects in his ward in the current financial year.

Vice chairman Cllr George Lister, chairing the meeting in the absence of chairman Cllr Kate Royston, said the money would help them press on with the project.

‘I propose we ask for the money for the layby. It is a very dangerous stretch of road,’ said Cllr Lister. ‘When the parents are dropping off children, because the layby is so dirty at this time of year, cars tend to park out further. This means that the number of lanes goes from two lanes to three quarters of a lane. So we are proposing to resurface the layby to make it safe for the children to come to school.’

Only four councillors were present at the meeting as several other councillors were unwell but all four voted to agree to the proposal.

The council does not know who owns the layby at present.

There have long been road safety concerns about the stretch of road outside Gulworthy Primary School, where traffic often speeds. It is thought that drivers are unaware that there is a primary school on this stretch of road just after the roundabout turn-off.

Cllr Lister said: ‘The speed limit on that stretch of road is 60mph and parents are standing in the road to drop off and collect their children. It just seems madness.’

He added: ‘It should be 20mph or 30mph.

‘The layby will help because it will help get the children and parents off the road, because at the moment the parents park in the road and that narrows it.’

Cllr Lister also reported that he had visited Rock Cross, the crossroads of the Morwellham Quay road with the main Gulworthy to Bere Alston road to see problems with visibility being caused by overhanging vegetation.

The visit was conducted with Gulworthy and Tavistock county councillor Debo Sellis. Cllr Lister told the meeting that he would resolve the issue by seeing if residents themselves could cut back the foliage in absence of immediate action by the highways authority.