Is this the first accident caused by HS2?

Saturday 26th October was never going to be an ordinary day in Whitmore and Baldwins Gate. It was the day that HS2 were coming to the village hall to explain why we should support their £42,600,000,000,000 expenditure on a high-speed line that was no longer going to be that much quicker than the ordinary lines and that would be financially detrimental to most of Staffordshire.

One major impact (in more ways than one) that the event had, seems to be yet another road traffic accident on the A53 in the village ... the fourth in two months! Once again the village and the A53 were clogged. Fortunately it was not for 8 hours on this occasion. Rumour has it, though this is not to be relied upon as evidence, that a car was waiting to turn into the HS2 exhibition, causing a small tail-back, and another motorist failed to stop causing one vehicle to shunt into another and another.....

For the villagers, traffic is a MAJOR issue and now, with the proposed construction of a MINI_ROUNDABOUT, they are all up in arms.

Highway engineers and Traffic Management Designers can say what they like but the facts speak for themselves. The village keeps being the location of accidents, both minor and serious.

Adding 113 extra houses, increasing the village population by 50%, will supposedly do nothing to make matters worse, at least once we have our new roundabout and extra Puffin crossing. There's no doubt that these obstacles will slow traffic but the designers don't see traffic speed as an issue anyway. What they will do is clog up the village at peak times, blocking exits from other side avenues, and seriously limiting the access and egress of properties in the vicinity.

The proposers of this development and associated engineering works are missing the point that the village is NOT stagnating, has NO NEED for this development, has no MARKET for these houses, and HAS NO INFRASTRUCTURE to support such an increase in population. The development is UNSUSTAINABLE!

Simply because the Newcastle Borough Council has failed to demonstrate that it can meet its 5-year housing targets, it is now being preyed upon by parasitic land developers taking advantage of its predicament like vultures pecking at an injured animal.