NEW data will be sought to assess whether traffic safety measures are required on a road near a school in Cwmbran.

A total of 377 people signed a petition requesting the installation of chicanes on Blenheim Road, in the St Dials area of the town.

The petition states that residents are seeing “near misses on a weekly basis”, with the most recent involving a car being forced to mount a pavement at high speed.

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It says the road – which is used to access Blenheim Road Community Primary School – is being used as a route to bypass speed bumps which have been installed on Greenmeadow Way.

“We demand action be taken by Torfaen council and request chicanes now be installed to reduce the speed and save the lives of our children and neighbours,” the petition says.

But a Torfaen council report, which recommended the request to install chicanes was rejected, says there has only been one serious crash on the street in the last five years, and the cause of this was not attributed to speed.

Data from 2018 shows the average vehicle speed was 26mph, suggesting there is not a “speeding problem”, with the limit set at 30mph.

At a full council meeting on Tuesday, councillors called for more up-to-date traffic data to be sought to assess the situation.

Cllr Elizabeth Haynes, who set up the petition, said the impact of recent housing developments in the area needed to be considered.

She said: “This school, like most other schools in the borough, deserves to have some protection installed for the children of this area.

“There isn’t and the continued reluctance of this authority is nothing more than shocking.

“Three years is a long time and things have changed. We need some refreshed data.

“People are that fed up of being ignored that they no longer report this.”

Cllr Mandy Owen, executive member for environment, said introducing any measures would be reliant on traffic data, and that residents needed to report any incidents.

Cllr Stuart Ashley suggested a 20mph speed limit, rather than the introduction of chicanes, would help address the issue.

An amendment put forward by Cllr Haynes, to defer the decision until current data is obtained, was supported by a majority vote.