A HEALTH chief is calling for urgent action after new figures show the death toll on East Lancashire roads is 20 per cent greater than the national average.

On average, there are seven extra road deaths every year in East Lancashire, "a much higher than expected mortality rate," Director of public health, Dr Stephen Morton, told a meeting of Rossendale engineering and planning committee.

Hospital admission rates revealed more people were involved in traffic accidents in Rossendale than anywhere else in the area and 11 per cent more people received hospital treatment for road accidents in Rossendale than anywhere else in East Lancashire.

Speaking in the wake of campaign to cut the death and injury toll on the Grane Road Dr Morton said: "Road accidents and serious injuries are more severe on our rural roads. Roads that connect with trunk roads are more dangerous. We need a local road safety strategy if we are to cut the number of deaths and make roads safe,"

Figures released by East Lancashire Roadsafe, a scheme set up to reduce the number of road accidents, show 40 people are killed each year in East Lancashire and road deaths amount to 1,150 years of lost life. Roadsafe hopes to emulate a pioneering scheme in Australia which has halved the number of road deaths by encouraging partnerships between police, health authorities and councils.

Dr Morton said the way forward was to change drivers' attitudes and cut speeds. He said: "There clearly is an urgent need to achieve more ambitious targets in East Lancashire."

Local employers are now being asked to look at work policies and stamp out car leasing and encourage new technology so that employees are less likely to drive to work.

Dr Morton added: "People don't realise that road traffic accidents remain the biggest single cause of accidental death among children and young people, not only nationally but also in East Lancashire."

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