A MOTHER-OF-THREE was told she could not have traffic calming measures in her street because the road did not satisfy accident criteria.

Mrs Alison McHugh, of Lucas Road, High Wycombe, brought her four-month-old baby Sarah to a meeting of the Wycombe area committee last week, where road safety requests were being considered. She held her baby in her arms as she stood up and made her plea.

Four months ago her husband Kieran had intended to present a petition on the same subject but could not because it was the night Sarah was born.

Mrs McHugh, who works as a paediatrician in the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, told the group she saw what happened to children injured in accidents and it could be devastating.

There could be a fatality in Lucas Road, she said, and accused the council of waiting for an accident to happen.

Safety officer Ian Duncan said this was not the case. "We are not waiting for anyone to get killed or injured," he said.

He told her there was already a huge list of sites in the county where accidents were already happening and people wanted safety measures.

"It is not where it might happen, but where it is happening over and over again.

"From our point of view it would be very easy to say 'we will give you traffic calming' because it would make our lives easy.

"But there has to be some sort of priority. As officers we care deeply, but we can't help everyone all the time, unless we get additional funding."

Later Mrs McHugh said she understood about the need to have priorities. But she added: "You have to fight and go on the record on this, because I feel if you don't you get nothing."

The McHughs have lived in Lucas Road for three-and-a-half years and been asking for traffic calming for the last two.

Mrs McHugh said cars used Lucas Road as a rat run and broke the 30 mph limit. It was the speed not the volume of traffic that worried her.

"We object to the fact that if you are taking a leisurely stroll along the road it is dangerous."

Her own children were too young to go outside, but if they were older she would not let them out. And more and more young families were moving in.

A total of 241 people or organisations in Wycombe district want traffic calming measures in their streets and villages.

There is £1 million for local safety schemes, but the total, if all the ones that met the criteria were done, would be £1.5 million.