A group of residents living on Moorland Road in Splott have joined forces with local Councillors to appeal to drivers to stop using their Victorian residential street as a cut through.
Community comes together to appeal to drivers
Moorland Road has become increasingly congested in recent months and the residents have organised themselves through WhatsApp to appeal to drivers from across the city who are using it as rat run.
Residents met with Councillors in a meeting to discuss ideas and call on drivers to use more appropriate roads to get around the city that were built with traffic in mind.
At the meeting residents painted a picture of life on their friendly street being constantly disrupted by traffic accidents.
Local Councillor Jane Henshaw, Ed Stubbs and Huw Thomas said
“Moorland Road is full of amazing people who are welcoming and friendly but the traffic situation is a real source of frustration. Cars being damaged and one even ending upturned.
Whilst the Council must look at longer term solutions to address these issues for good, in the meantime we are calling on commuters not to use Splott as a rat-run. These are Victorian terraced streets and weren’t designed to be a main route across the city.”
Moorland Road resident, Dave Jones, said:
“My car has been hit on several occasions over the last year. The front wing has been hit by a red car that damaged the headlamp as well. The back wing has been hit by a grey car. The wing mirror has been knocked off. I’ve been squeezed between a builders van and my car whilst waiting for it to pass. We have had cars pull up behind us after we parked outside the house, sounding the horn for us to get out of the way”.
Emma of Moorland Road described the difficulties and distress facing residents:
“Experience’s we’ve had have been: a number of wing mirrors taken off, car written off, new car scratched. Weekly aggressive road range incidents outside the house. Shouting, honking, blocking the road, drivers getting out of cars being abusive to each other. Aggressive behaviour from drivers when trying to park outside our house. Difficulty getting kids in and out the car when they were smaller and couldn’t get them to climb over and exit car path side. Difficulty pulling out to go anywhere when traffic backed up.
The shouting and threatening language between drivers outside our house happens so often the children have become desensitised and don’t really notice it anymore, it’s just a normal part of their experience. Pretty sad.”
Not nice at all and a real stress for residents of this Splott Street. Let’s hope drivers pay heed and use other routes, so that residents of Moorland Road and neighbouring streets Carlisle, Railway and Habershon, which are equally congested at peak times, can have a spot of relief from the traffic difficulties in Splott.
