FED-UP with their Kendal estate being used as a rat-run and over-flow car park, residents of Rinkfield are campaigning for traffic calming.

More than 50 people living on Rinkfield and Burland Grove have signed a petition urging Cumbria County Council to take action before an accident occurs.

In a letter sent with the petition to the council's South Lakeland area committee, Rinkfield Residents Association chairman Tony Park explained motorists used the estate as a short-cut from Natland Road to Burton Road to avoid the roundabout at Romney Bridge.

His letter stated that the estate also gets clogged up with parked vehicles, from people visiting the leisure centre or post office, meaning a steady flow of traffic all day, every day.

Mr Park said the situation on the residential estate was "quite unacceptable," and urged the committee to carry out traffic management as a matter of urgency.

"We would like to see less through traffic and parking provided on Burton Road for the people who wish to use the post office, the coach business and the leisure centre," he wrote.

County councillor Alan Bobbett, whose ward includes Rinkfield, told the committee the problems had been getting worse recently, and that residents were extremely concerned at the amount of traffic driving through the estate, often at high speeds.

He said the number of vehicles parked up along the pavements exacerbated the situation, and made it difficult for people to safely cross the roads.

"There are a lot of young children living on the estate and there were a couple who were nearly knocked down," he later told the Gazette.

In response to the petition from residents, Nick Raymond, county council area engineer for Barrow and South Lakeland, promised to organise a meeting with residents, highway officers and the local ward

members within the next two months.

His statement, read out to the committee, said that traffic-calming and resident-only parking had been looked into some years ago, and although there had then been little support for either option, he agreed to look again at the problems.

"The issue of overspill parking that takes place during popular performances at the leisure centre is a key element of this, as is the use of Rinkfield as a rat run between Burton Road and Natland Road," said his statement, adding that any proposed work could be implemented next year.

Coun Bobbett said he was satisfied with the offer of a meeting involving residents, to come up with a traffic-calming solution.