A NEW website is fighting for a new bypass to be built on the A66 and is building up a virtual petition of campaigners online, reports KAREN MORLEY.

Kirkby Thore Traffic Steering Group has launched the site at http://www.ktbypass.co.uk in a bid to keep people up to date with its campaign to get the village bypassed and the site welcomes visitors to make comments and suggestions.

Two meetings were organised by Kirkby Thore Parish Council for village residents to air their views on the need for a village bypass following the Government's decision to bypass Temple Sowerby and to create dual carriageways on those sections of the A66 which have not been improved.

Residents agreed that this would be a great opportunity to campaign for the bypass, and to rid the village of its traffic problem. Strong feelings were expressed about road safety on the A66 and on the C3065, which is the main street through the village.

The result of the meetings was that the Kirkby Thore Traffic Steering Group was formed with the aim of getting a bypass.

More than 1,300 vehicles travel along the A66 each day, of which approximately 34% are heavy goods vehicles.

A traffic count undertaken by members of the Steering Group revealed that over 2,200 vehicles per day travel through the village itself on the C3065 road. Again, a high percentage of these were heavy goods vehicles and commercial vehicles.

The nature of Main Street and its junction with the A66 are such that heavy goods vehicles have difficulty in negotiating the junction when more than one heavy goods vehicle is present and there are occasions when vehicles have to mount the pavements.

The proposals for Temple Sowerby Bypass have raised concerns about the impact on traffic speed for vehicles leaving the new bypass (when it is built) and having to revert to the single carriageway 40mph zone through Kirkby Thore.

KTTSG wish to thank the villagers, including repres-entatives from British Gypsum and other local businesses, who filled the hall on a wet rainy evening, to support the efforts made by the group. A competition to guess the amount of traffic flow was held involving the entire village, and was won by Mrs D Stables, who got closest to the 2,291 figure with her guess of 2,500.

For the future KTTSG would like to involve the whole village by inviting them to collect information concerning road accidents and bad driving practice and also to participate in its window sign and sticker campaign to BYPASS KIRKBY THORE NOW!

April 30, 2003 10:00