GOVERNMENT experts are examining a plan to create a new 40 miles per hour speed limit near an East Lancashire village school.

The road immediately outside Cliviger Holme Primary, near Burnley, is already covered by a special 20mph limit.

Now safety experts at Whitehall's Highways Agency are looking at a plan to put a 40mph buffer zone south east of the 20mph area to help cars slow down.

The current W-mile section has a 60mph limit like the rest of the main road. The plan has been submitted by the Lancashire county surveyor for consideration in a programme of schemes costing less than £100,000.

But data on the success of the 20mph limit has yet to be analysed by Department of Transport safety experts.

Lancashire chief executive Gordon Johnson says this is understood to be because of a shake-up of the DoT's traffic research laboratory.

He warns concerned Burnley MP Peter Pike that it could be another year before results are available and the county knows whether to repeat the scheme elsewhere.

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