A COMMUNITY has demanded traffic-calming measures in a residential area which has become a short-cut for cars and lorries.

Ward councillor Eileen Entwistle is pushing for some type of scheme along Quaker Lane and Winterton Road, Darwen, to reduce the number of vehicles making their way to the industrial estate in Goose House Road and the M65.

She has met with council officers who are looking at possible solutions to the problem, and now the headteacher at the nearby nursery has backed the campaign.

Between January 1999 and September 2003, the highways department at the council recorded three injury accidents at the junction of Winterton Road and Olive Lane and one injury accident in Winterton Road.

Coun Entwistle said: "Some of the traffic that comes from the motorway is using Quaker Lane and Winterton Drive as a short-cut which is not really appropriate as there is a school, nursery and Sure Start centre in that area.

"We are looking at ways, linking in with the Safer Routes to School scheme, to make them traffic-calming areas.

"Some people suggest road humps, others prefer a 20mph zone. We want to find the right solution for this area."

She said she got involved after attending a residents' meeting in the area and hearing people's concerns. Gill Whittingham, acting headteacher at Chapels Nursery, in Winterton Drive, backed the idea.

She said: "I think everyone round here is in favour of doing something like this. Outside the nursery there is a very bad corner which at the moment is being made worse by the building work we are having done.

"The traffic does seem to have got heavier and we get a lot of lorries going past.

"We are changing from a nursery to a children's centre hopefully by the end of May, so there will be a lot more traffic anyway at all times of the day.

"We would therefore back all these kind of measures which would slow traffic down and maybe stop them using it as a short-cut altogether."