A LOCAL councillor says he’s delighted to have secured speed monitoring in his ward following a spate of dangerous driving.

Kingwell Road, High Street and Mount Vernon Road will now have speed indicator devices installed, speed surveys conducted and enforcement.

The efforts have been co-ordinated by Coun Jake Lodge, who has highlighted these hotspot areas with Barnsley Council, South Yorkshire Police, and the South Yorkshire Safety Camera Partnership.

The council and road safety partnership have now agreed to act on his concerns.

Coun Lodge said all three roads have been blighted by speeding over the years.

He added: “I’m extremely pleased that I have been able secure this monitoring of speeding and dangerous driving in Worsbrough.

“Residents have continually raised this with me, and I’m pleased to have led the charge in helping make our roads safer on their behalf.

“It’s great to see the support from different agencies involved, all with a view to creating my goal of a safer Worsbrough.

“However, I won’t be complacent and I’m working on other tackling the impact in other areas of my community.’’

The latest statistics show more than 15,000 motorists were caught exceeding the limit over a three-year period.

Since 2019, 15,577 notices of intended prosecution have been issued in the town, and more than 200,000 by South Yorkshire Police in the county.

Road safety bosses recently urged motorists to slow down as part of a crackdown - after police revealed excess speed accounts for a third of all fatalities on the local road network.

Barnsley’s number of fatal collisions has fallen, according to the latest Department for Transport (DfT) statistics but it has trebled to nine since 2015 when there were just three.

According to South Yorkshire Police, more than 65,000 speed-related offences were recorded by the force last year.

Inspector Matt Collings said: “Speed kills, it is a fact, and limits are there for a reason driving a few miles per hour over can have fatal and devastating effects.

“If you kill or seriously injure someone because you were speeding, you will not only face time in prison, you will have to live with the long-term emotional consequences.”

Tom Finnegan-Smith, from the South Yorkshire Safer Roads Partnership, added: “Driving or riding too fast for the road conditions contributes to one-third of road collisions.

“The speed limit is the absolute maximum and does not mean that it is safe to drive or ride at that speed in all conditions.

“Factors such as the weather, the state of the road and time of day should be considered when choosing what speed to travel at.

“The faster someone is driving, the longer it will take them to stop if something unexpected happens.”