The manager of a children’s nursery says plans to cut the speed limit on a major road outside the Trowbridge business are not enough to help improve safety for the children in her care.

Melanie Halliday, deputy manager at the Longscroft Children’s Nursery, at Trowle Common, says plans to reduce the speed limit on the A363 outside to 50mph, announced after a consultation exercise, do not go far enough.

She would like to see the nearby 40mph speed limit extended to include the nursery’s entrance, in a bid to cut down on the number of road accidents. Wiltshire Council has defended its decision saying only three accidents have occurred near to the nursery in the last three years.

Miss Halliday said: “There have been many more accidents than the council claims. A parent of a child here was involved in one. She will never be able to brush her hair again normally because of her injuries. The police said that if she hadn’t dropped off her son at the nursery he would have been dead.

“They have not even tried to look into our concerns. They could at least monitor the road to see just how fast people are travelling. It makes me so cross.”

Miss Halliday said the children are often upset to realise there has been another accident, and that the heavy traffic makes it impossible for the children to venture out of the nursery complex.

“As part of the government’s Early Years Foundation curriculum we have to get out into the local community, which we would love to do, but we just can’t cross a road when the cars travel so fast,” she said. “It’s only a short walk to the town but the road really limits what activities we are able to do with the children.

“If the government wants us to fulfil this part of the curriculum then the council needs to take our concerns over the road seriously.”

The nursery, which looks after more than 100 children, has enlisted the help of South West Wilts MP Dr Andrew Murrison, who was told by the council that: “In the preceding three year period there have been three collisions which have resulted in person injury recorded in the vicinity of Longscroft Nursery. We will continue to monitor this location but at present our resources are concentrated on the highest (priority) sites.”