RESIDENTS have raised concerns over child safety in Dorchester’s Victoria Park.

The concerns were raised as Dorset County Council embarks on a fact finding mission to find out about traffic issues in the area.

The council held a drop-in session for residents at the Thomas Hardye School for people to raise any concerns they have about parking, road safety and school transport.

At the packed meeting the issue of safety for children attending Dorchester Middle School and the Thomas Hardye School was highlighted.

Poundbury resident David Wiggins, who has two children who attend Dorchester Middle School, said his previous efforts to get safety measures implemented had fallen on deaf ears and he was alarmed that it should be so difficult to get measures in place to protect children. He said: “I’m amazed nobody’s been killed.”

“It shouldn’t be a battle to have to get change.”

Dorchester town and district councillor David Barrett said the number of people that attended the meeting showed just how many people had concerns in the area.

He said: “There is an awful lot of feeling. It’s a culmination of things, of the developments being in virtually the one spot and dealing with the problems that cars bring to everybody no matter where they live.

“Here it’s really a problem for people getting in and out of their houses and a problem for children going to school, there are all those considerations.”

Traffic engineering team manager for Dorset County Council Andrew Brown said the aim of the event was to get as many views as possible from residents so officers could work out what the issues are and start to move forward with proposing solutions.

He said: “We need to hear what their views are so we can take them forward to form some kind of action plan in partnership with the town council for the future.

“We haven’t got any solutions at the moment because first we want to hear what the problems are.”