A PUBLIC meeting takes place in Chiddingfold on Monday following urgent calls for more safety measures to be installed on the main approach road to the village.

Hundreds of residents have signed a petition calling for something to be done in the wake of two fatal accidents in just over six months.

Two weeks ago the notorious accident blackspot on the A283 Petworth Road claimed its latest victim. Motorcyclist Nigel Skinner (48) a policeman who was married with two teenage children and a five-year-old son, died in an accident outside The Winterton Arms when his motorcycle was in collision with a car.

In August last year, Darren Knott (32) from Hambledon died when the car he was driving was in collision with another vehicle just yards from where the latest accident happened.

Joanne Terry (26), who has lived in the village all her life, and her partner Kevin Bialogrodzki, is organising the special meeting and said it would be a "brain-storming session" for action.

She hopes that one of the results of the meeting will be a lower speed limit from The Winterton Arms to the other end of the village at the junction of Turners Mead.

Miss Terry said the problem of speeding traffic had become worse in recent years.

"There are more cars now, and they go a lot faster," she said. "The two main problems are visibility, and that the speed limit drops from 60 mph to 30 as cars approach the village."

She added that concerned residents will be encouraged to write to the Highways department at Surrey County Council, to the police and to local MP Virginia Bottomley.

A petition to reduce the speed limit will be sent to local authorities, and an action group will be established to keep the momentum of the campaign going.

"Everyone is talking about this," Miss Terry told The Herald. "So why don't we just do something about it?"

The meeting starts at 8 pm in The Winterton Arms, close to where the accident took place.

According to Surrey County Council statistics, which do not include the two latest tragedies, there have been six accidents at the same spot, one serious and five minor incidents.

A spokesman for SCC said the last fatality was in 1998 and occurred 200 metres south of The Winterton Arms.

The spokesman added that a working group, including representatives from Chiddingfold Parish Council, SCC engineers and the police, was meeting this week to discuss the latest accident.

For more details of the meeting contact Joanne Terry on 01428 685991.