Following the tragic death of Louis Thorold in January 2021 on the A10 in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire County Council along with the Louis Thorold Foundation and Urban&Civic have been working tirelessly to improve safety along this notorious road (details of the campaign can be viewed here and the scheme itself can be viewed here).
Today (Friday), the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Mayor Dr Nik Johnson, Cambridgeshire County Council Leader Cllr Lucy Nethsingha and Cambridgeshire County Council Highways and Transport Committee chair Cllr Alex Beckett and MP Lucy Frazer, along with the Chairman of the Louis Thorold Foundation Chris Thorold and Caroline Foster from Urban&Civic met to see some of the improvements made.
At the time of the collision, following numerous deaths and serious injuries along the route, a safety study on the A10 between Ely and Cambridge had begun, with key actions were accelerated to ensure delivery before any further tragedy.
In support of Cambridgeshire Council’s commitment to VisionZero work was undertaken in conjunction with the Louis Thorold Foundation to establish the root causes in the design of the highway and urban environment to improve safety for vulnerable road users.
The Council worked with developers, Urban&Civic, to bring forward and adapt work as part of the Waterbeach Barracks redevelopment, which included: reduce the speed limit from 50mph to 40mph, to improve and widen the existing shared pedestrian and cycle path between the A10 junctions with Denny End Road and Ely Road, provide a shared pedestrian and cycle path north of Denny End Road and a toucan crossing north of Car Dyke Road.
Cllr Alex Beckett, chair of the Highways and Transport Committee, said: “As a father myself, I cannot begin to imagine what the Thorold family have been through, so when I took over as chair, I was keen to speak to officers and other members in our Joint Administration about the improvements to this road. There is more work to do and more opportunities in the A10 Ely to Cambridge study which we will continue to progress with.”
Chairman of the Louis Thorold Foundation and father of Louis, Chris Thorold said:
“In 20 months we’ve achieved more for road safety on the A10 than had been done on this road in the past 20 years. It’s heartening to see what collaboration between Cambridgeshire County Council, Urban&Civic and the Louis Thorold Foundation can achieve in such a short space of time. Our thanks go to all of those who have worked so hard in dealing with the consequences of this collision and their commitment to implementing a safer system. However, this is just the beginning, and we won’t rest until all our roads in Cambridgeshire and across the UK are safe for our children.”
The County Council and the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, with the Department for Transport funding, are progressing with an outline business case for strategic investment on the A10 between Ely and Cambridge. This was recently discussed at the Highways and Transport Committee in July, read more here.
The Louis Thorold Foundation is a charity registered in England and Wales with the aim of preventing all deaths of children on Britain's roads. For more information about our campaigns or to donate visit www.louisthorold.com.