As everyone is aware, Fife Council has set plans for the village to become a 20mph zone with the exception of Tay Street, High Street, High Road, Boat Brae and West Road. Why have these streets been excluded? Surely if any drivers (including bus/truck drivers) are likely to break the law by speeding these, with the exception of Kirk Road, are highly likely. Within the last year ther has been, to my knowledge, at least three incidents. The first being the scholl kid who was knocked down at the bus stop on West Road just before Kinbrae Park. The second just at the start of June, an older gent pulling out of Shepherds Road was hit by a car (Speeding)driven by a young lad heading towards Wormit.The force of impact pushing both cars onto the pavement on the other side of the road and alomst into someones garden. Lastly, Sunday evening (July 4th) between 8 and 9 PM, my cat (His name was Jack and not just a cat but a much loved pet/friend) was killed by a car heading towards the shops (West Road again). A local chap who found Jack against the wall had the kindness, decency and humanity, unlike the driver, to knock on a few doors to find out who the cat belonged to and brought him home - THANK YOU. The condition of Jack, distance his body was thrown from impact, and quantity/spread of blood on the road and pavement suggests he was hit with considerable force. I would find it VERY unlikely the driver of the car was not speeding - What if it had been a child? If you were in the area or seen a car with blood or damage on the front, please report this. For these reasons, surely West Road MUST become part of the 20mph zone.

Gary, Sorry to hear about your cat. With respect to the 20mph zones, sections of Cupar Road and Kirk Road are also excluded as they are 'nonresidential'. This refers to the long straight run along Cupar Road (going up the hill to the school) and the section of Kirk Road without housing on it. I think it's a shame not to have the 20mph limit on these sections since these are the only 2 routes for kids to walk to school. Of course there is the temporary 20mph zone immediately next to the school. It might be worth taking this issue up with Fife Council or the community council, although the consultation period for the 20mph zones is (I think) over. The argument you'll come up against is that the speed limit must match drivers' perception of the road. That is, if the speed limit is set too low for the prevailing road conditions then drivers will simply ignore it as being obviously unsuitable. So the question is would a 20mph limit be suitable on this section of road, or is the problem that the 30mph limit isn't being observed? If the latter, then it's an enforcement issue and it perhaps isn't appropriate to reduce the speed limit in the hope that people will then drive at 30mph - this penalises those who obey the speed limit and probably won't influence those who already don't. The first step in any case would be to make a case to get some monitoring equipment installed and find out how fast drivers are actually going over a 7 day period. As an example of what can be achieved, the Parent Council at Newport Primary asked for speed monitoring equipment (those rubber sensors across the road) to be installed on Cupar Road a couple of years ago, and as a result of the speeds measured Fife Council agreed to install a flashing slow down sign to remind drivers of the speed limit (and yes, we're still waiting for this to be installed!). If you and enough of your neighbours made requests for speed monitoring (perhaps through our elected representatives?) then you'd probably get put in the queue to have the kit installed for a week. Good luck!

Will, sorry, i meant the residential streets. I do agree with everything you said. I guess the point i'm trying to make is that West Road has a high accident rate, if not the highest for the village. I. and others, have witnessed some really dangerous driving on this street, including the little blue Saxo doing about 50-60, and a neighbour had a 4wd try to overtake him when (heading from Wormit towards the shops) he was indicating to turn up into Shepherds Road, one of the buses came round the corner and nearly finished them all off.

i completely agree with you both.the council definatley need to look at the route to school on the cupar road.perhaps adding traffic calming islands on either lanes.would help a little.at least it would slow the traffic down and also i think as do many other parents that there should be metal railings all the way down that road.from the corner where thay start already down to victoria street.all it takes is for a kid to slip-especially in the winter months and fall under a car.

It seems to me that the only way to protect our children from the wider world is to cocoon them. Not in cotton wool of course but perhaps we can take a leaf out of Dundee’s book in general and the Olympia Swimming pool in particular? Their water slides offer perhaps the ideal solution in transporting these kids to school? All we need is a system of tubes that interconnect every house with school children to a main tube that links direct to the school in Cupar Road. At a stroke it will remove the danger of the dreaded school run which can only be to the benefit of the many OAPs in our village and it will ensure that the kids arrive at school on time and in perfect condition no matter what the weather.

I think I've seen one or two tubes driving down that road already Peter..!

At least we havent got that complete munter who drives a blue subaro round St andrews, what a chopper!!