PENSIONERS have described a road lined with parked cars outside their retirement home in Cirencester, as ‘an accident waiting to happen’ after an ambulance struggled to access the property.

Residents at Bath Gate Place in Hammond Way, are worried that there will be a fatality on the busy road due to the number of cars parked there.

Many of the residents, who are aged 70 and over, also claimed that driving out of their car park or crossing the road by foot or in a mobility scooter, had become an everyday danger.

The residents said that Hammond Way was previously marked as an urban clearway, meaning that cars are not allowed to stop there, except in the case of an emergency.

But the signs were removed sometime before or during the construction of Bath Gate Place and were never replaced.

It is understood that the signs cannot now be replaced because legal paperwork could not be located by Gloucestershire County Council (GCC) or the Department for Transport (DfT) to prove that the road is an urban clearway.

An alternative solution for the road, according to county councillor Joe Harris, is to create a new traffic regulation order (TRO), but this could take nearly a year to implement.

Photos sent to the Standard (one of which is below) show an ambulance having to enter the one-way road in the wrong direction to access the home. The road was therefore blocked for some time.

Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard:

Cate Luck, a resident at Bath Gate Place, said that by the time a TRO can be put in place, “someone could get run over”.

She said: “It’s an accident waiting to happen. Older people going in between cars is so dangerous.

“You have no visibility as you come out of the car park. Cars park where pavements are lowered, so mobility scooters can’t get through.

“An ambulance two or three weeks ago couldn’t get in. It was facing the wrong way as they couldn’t park.

“It is a great concern to me. It’s a concern that we might have a fatality.

“Striped crossings, that’s all we need. It will make things so much easier.”

Another Bath Gate Place resident, John Thatcher, 77, uses a mobility scooter to get around and said he receives verbal abuse from drivers when he tries to cross the road.

He said: “The road is supposed to be 20mph, but cars seldom go 20mph.”

He also had concerns about accessibility for emergency vehicles as he has had to use the ambulance “a couple of times recently”.

Resident Peter Major, 87, explained the difficulty of driving out of the residents’ car park: “I had to go out this morning, if I did not have my wife as passenger, I would not be able to see anything on the left as there was a large car obscuring the whole view of Hammond Way.

“Very few cars are going at 20mph. I think they must be going between 30 to 40mph.

“We have to be patient and hope that we don’t get an accident there until something is done to remove cars parked there."

Cllr Joe Harris said earlier this month that the situation was “extremely frustrating and sums up why people get annoyed with government and councils”.

Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard:

(Cllr Joe Harris in Hammond Way)

“Due to GCC and DfT not being able to find the paperwork it looks like we’ll have to undertake a traffic regulation order to stop cars parking on Hammond Way which is likely to be a long process.”

Liz Kirkham, network manager for GCC, said: “We’re aware parking is an issue in Hammond Way. We are working on a proposal for restrictions that should help and will consult with local people before any final decisions are made.”

A DfT spokesperson said that it was entirely the responsibility of the local authority.