HUNDREDS of people have signed a petition calling for a 20mph speed limit to be introduced in a village.

Gillian and David Noble launched the campaign after two car crashes outside their home in The Street, Old Basing, within a few months of each other.

One, in Janurary, resulted in a car smashing into an outbuilding, narrowly missing their home.

The couple, who have two children, have since collected 800 signatures from villagers, and have spoken to Old Basing Parish Council about the problem of speeding traffic and drivers using the village as a rat-run.

Both Old Basing Infant School and St Mary’s Junior School are backing the campaign, with the hope of making it safer for children to walk to school. Children from the junior school wrote letters to Councillor Seán Woodward, from Hampshire County Council, about the problem.

Mrs Noble hopes to collect 1,000 signatures before presenting her petition to the county council at the end of July.

However, she has been told that it could be two years before Old Basing is even considered for a 20mph scheme. She said villagers had been fighting for measures for years.

She added: “The highways officer told the parish council that they decided to put three other locations into the 20mph scheme and it’s going to take two years for them to evaluate. Meanwhile no other villages would be considered.”

She said residents were in “uproar” when they heard this.

“They have been fobbed off for 10 years. It all got a bit emotional,” she added.

However, Mrs Noble hopes her petition will put pressure on the county council to do something.

She said: “You can’t walk your child to school in safety. It’s just such a travesty. It’s outrageous. You think we would have been one of the first places (for the 20mph scheme) because we have no paths and all this through traffic.”

Tracey McCarley, headteacher at Old Basing Infant School, in The Mead, said she was behind the 20mph campaign and told The Gazette: “We are a school that’s trying to encourage our children to walk to school and we are part of a scheme to walk once a week.

“We are aware that it’s difficult for parents to see walking to school as a safe option because of the lack of pavements and speed of drivers and it’s got a lot worse since the Black Dam Roundabout works started. It’s something that hopefully will ensure our children can walk to school safely. I think the size of the roads in the village make it possible for it to be 20mph.”

Executive Member for Economy, Transport and Environment, Councillor Seán Woodward, said: “Hampshire County Council is currently implementing a programme of pilot 20mph speed limits across Hampshire to assess the benefit of lower speed limits for residents.

"Old Basing was considered as one of the pilot locations, for the rural settlement extension to the initial urban pilot exercise, but it was not selected, as more rural, self contained residential areas were considered to provide a better basis for a comprehensive evaluation of the impact of 20mph limits across a range of circumstances.

"Until the pilot programme has been completed, and the results carefully evaluated the county council does not intend to implement any more 20mph speed limits.

"However, we do understand that there have been concerns about traffic routing through this area because of the work being carried out at Black Dam Roundabout. Old Basing will remain on the list as an area for consideration if 20mph speed limits were to be rolled out more widely in the future.”

For more details on the campaign visit safer-roads-for-oldbasing.org.