WORK has finally begun on a £22,000 traffic calming scheme after years of campaigning by residents and local councillors.

Contractors began work in the Hillingdon Road and Underley Street area of Burnley, five years after residents first complained about motorists using the stretch as a rat run.

Work will include installing nine road humps and three pairs of speed cushions in a bid to stop motorists speeding along the busy road.

Coun Paula Riley has helped campaign for the measures to cut speed on the busy residential roads.

She was delighted to go along and see the first signs of work on the long-awaited measures which residents have been campaigning for for around 20 years.

She said: "It has taken quite a long time but I am delighted to finally see work underway to make it a safer place to live. The council's strategy is to have cleaner, safer and greener environment so hopefully we are making a step forward on the Kibble Bank estate. Hopefully it will calm the situation up there.

"I have had a lot of people at my throat asking when it was going to happen and hopefully work will be completed within the next 12 weeks or sooner.

"It is a rat run from Marsden Road and for the sake of an extra five or ten minutes, people will get there safely and everyone will be in one piece."

Members of the Kibble Estate residents association handed a petition to the council in 1998 which was signed by 334 local residents and supported by ward councillors and county councillors asking for speed humps and a 20mph limit in Underley Street and Hillingdon Road.

Since then they have continued to ask for something to be done to slow traffic in the area.

After consultation between Lancashire County Council, local councillors and residents, a scheme was put together to suit everyone on an estate that is home to many children.

More recently, people living between Hillingdon Road and a field near the estate complained about the danger of youths riding scrambler bikes up and down their streets close to where their children play.

Sergeant Martin Bishop, of the road policing unit in Colne, said: "That section of road has been used as a shortcut or rat run for many years so hopefully calming measures should prevent that and reduce the flow of traffic.

"We are not aware of any serious incidents but it's a residential area and there is a great volume of traffic that is too high for that type of road."