TRAFFIC calming measures are set to be introduced on the road where brothers Corey and Casper Platt-May, aged six and two respectively, were tragically killed by a speeding driver doing 61mph while on cocaine.
Coventry City Council’s transport and highway director Colin Knight confirmed the safety measures plan for Longfellow Road, Stoke, following a campaign led by the Platt-May family.
The council received six petitions demanding the measures, with 4,600 signatures.
The scheme will cost the council at least £120,000,
Mr Knight said works would begin next year to implement ‘pedestrian refuge’ islands in the middle of road, two ‘raised table’ style speed humps and ‘ladder style’ road markings to create a refuge in the middle of the road.
But the measures fall short of the pedestrian crossing requested by the family and campaigners.
A council officer’s report states: “Longfellow Road is a wide road, running from the Walsgrave Road to Hipswell Highway.
“The speed limit is 30mph but some drivers regularly exceed this.
“It is also a bus route with a number of bus stops.
“Longfellow Road is used by many children attending Ravensdale Primary School from the houses across Longfellow Road, in Tennyson Road and adjoining roads.”
There have been six collisions involving injuries in three years, the limit in which safety assessments are required.
Speeding is regularly recorded by mobile vehicle activated signs.
At just after 2pm on February 22 this year, the Platt-May brothers, who were with their mother, were hit by a black Ford Focus.
Driver Robert Brown sped off before abandoning the car in nearby Hipswell Highway, but he and his passenger Gwendoline Harrison were arrested shortly afterwards.
Brown was sentenced to nine years – later raised to ten-and-a-half years – at Warwick Crown Court in April for causing the deaths of Corey and Casper, aged six and two respectively – after pleading guilty.
Harrison was released in July after serving only weeks in prison, prompting further outcry about the leniency of the sentences the pair received.
A further campaign led by the brothers’ family and supported by city councillors is lobbying government to introduce sterner sentences for those who cause death by dangerous driving.
