Congleton Town Council has pledged their support to Newbold Astbury cum Moreton Parish Council in their endeavours to improve road safety at an accident blackspot to ensure any further tragic losses of life can be prevented.

Georgia Ogden sadly passed away after the car she was travelling in crashed into an HGV on the A34 in Astbury in the early hours of 25th June.

Two other school friends, with her in the Suzuki Swift, girls aged 17 and 18, suffered serious injuries. A lorry driver was uninjured.

Councillors at Thursday's virtual Congleton Town Council meeting of the community and environment committee paid their respects.

Cllr David Brown said: "I think formally as a council we should offer our condolences and support to the family of Georgia Ogden who was killed in the accident on the A34 and our prayers go towards those who were injured in the accident as well, who are not totally fully recovered.

"I am asking for the town council to pledge support to Newbold Astbury cum Moreton Parish Council in their endeavours to try and improve the road safety and safety measures at Astbury Village Green to try and make sure that this tragedy never happens again."

Cllr Kay Wesley said: "Our thoughts go out to Georgia Ogden's family in their loss, and we will do whatever we can to prevent anything like this happening again."

Cllr Paul Duffy said: "This tragedy for me shows the fact that I don't understand why we have to have a certain amount of accidents before we get traffic calming measures in, it seems to be a policy which has been in since the age of dawn where unless we get five deaths on a road we won't put a pelican crossing in, we need to think more on preventative measures before they happen.

"The Astbury crossroads and all that area has been well-known as a troubled spot, the amount of near misses, anyone that has done safety regulations knows, if you count the number of near misses, you will get an actual fatality and I think we need to really support Astbury as far as we can to make sure we can get something in place before there are any more accidents."

Cllr Brown stated that the "ideal solution" would see the introduction of a roundabout, but he didn't know whether that would be within the "realms of possibility" or not.

Cllr Brown, who use to be in charge of highways at Cheshire East Council, added: "It's a particular problem that junction because of the rise up and the drop down the hill as you come into it. The options to look at are maybe moving the 30mph further out from the town centre and maybe have road markings, certainly if you go from Alsager to Crewe where there was a 30mph area there, they very effectively mark the road to raise concerns and make sure traffic slowed down.

"So they are all the things that will be looked at by the highways experts, we need to make sure we give our full support to what is the best solution they come up with, we just need a solution."

The committee unanimously agreed to support Newbold Astbury cum Moreton Parish Council.