PEOPLE power in a Basingstoke suburb is set to win the day after a mass petition paved the way for a safety campaign victory.

Anxious residents banded together to call for action after a five-year-old girl was injured outside Chineham Park Primary School in Shakespeare Road, Popley.

The accident, involving Chelsea Banning, of Dryden Close, was the latest in a series on the same road and was the final straw for many residents who were concerned that the next incident would see someone die.

More than 650 local people signed a petition calling for action - and now it looks like they are going to get the result they want.

Cllr Ron Hussey, Cabinet member for environmental sustainability, is expected to release funding for a series of safety improvements on Shakespeare Road at tomorrow's borough Cabinet meeting.

In the last three years, there have been four accidents on the U-shaped road, which serves numerous residential properties, two schools, a shopping centre and a health centre. Two of these involved pedestrians near to the entrance of Chineham Park Primary School.

After the protest petition was received by the council, borough officers identified a number of low-cost improvements that could be implemented to make access to and from the school safer.

These improvements, which will cost £21,000 and could be implemented over the next few weeks, include revised and improved carriageway markings in Shakespeare Road, additional pedestrian guard railing, the siting of replacement fencing and the provision of various additional sections of footpath.

Popley ward councillor Rob Donnelly, who has backed the residents' safety push, told The Gazette it is unlikely the improvements would have been in line to be implemented so soon had it not been for the petition effort.

He said: "The council is looking at safer journeys to school all over the borough, but it obviously takes time to do them all. Improvements on Shakespeare Road would have been considered at some point, but probably not as quickly as this.

"The parents who organised the petition have done a terrific job. They were quite rightly upset but went about it in the right manner by engaging ward councillors, the school and then the council. Now they have a result."

The council was also asked to investigate the possibility of implementing a 20mph zone on Shakespeare Road, but it has already committed its budget for such projects elsewhere.