DYMOCK Parish Council has won its battle to get the village removed from the HGV advisory routes for Gloucestershire, but concerns remain that car drivers are travelling through "at motorway speeds".

Terry Ball, chairman of the parish council, says that local parents are refusing to push prams along the narrow paths at the Newent end of the village in particular, at Pound Corner, for fear that a car might leave the road on the sharp bend.

He says he knows that motorists are driving well over the 30mph speed limit through the village, because he has been out with a radar gun himself.

Cllr Ball said: "I have stood my the road with a radar gun and at times we've had cars going through at motorway speeds."

Cllr Ball said that lorries had actually overturned on the bend in the past.

Now an imminent meeting with highways authority will take place to help decide what might be done to help improve the situation.

One location for improvements could be the bend at the Newent side of the village, where a 60mph speed limit on the B4215 becomes 40mph just before the bend but changes to 30mph for the village.

Cllr Ball says that some motorists actually accelerate towards the village, immediately after the 40mph zone.

And Cllr Ball said the recent HGV route victory had not made a great deal of difference so far.

He said: "And why not? Because there is no money available to replace the direction signs."

But Gloucestershire Highways has funded a new gateway sign at the change over from 40mph to 30mph at the Preston Cross end of the village, where there is also a speed indicator sign, and it has also put one new sign on the Dymock Road "at the 30mph changeover point just past Dowles Cottages, as you exit towards Newent".

These improvements follow a five year campaign run jointly by the Dymock Road safety group, CALM, and the parish council.

But Cllr Ball is far from satisfied.

He said: "Our efforts so far have had few tangible results, but not through want of trying."

Now the parish council is set to apply for money from a £250,000 pot of money held by the Gloucestershire Rural Community Council and made available for local road safety schemes by Police Commissioner, Martin Surl.

This could help to fund Traffic Regulation Orders and new signage for Dymock.

But Cllr Ball said: "There's no guarantee that we'll be successful, but we have never stopped trying to make Dymock a safer place."