CALLS have been made to improve safety along a road where teenager Estelle Thompson died in an accident.

The chair of Hapton Parish Council has called for static speed cameras or more police enforcement to be implemented near the canal bridge in Manchester Road, near to where Estelle, 17, who was a front-seat passenger in a Ford Ka, died on Sunday.

Coun Tim Birbeck said he approached Lancashire County Council and the police in 2012 requesting traffic calming measures for the area, but was told the number of accidents and low level of traffic meant the expense couldn’t be justified.

He said: “I think speed cameras are just used to make money, but we need traffic calming measures there to slow some people down because it’s a hotspot for accidents.

“A week before the terrible accident that happened on Sunday, there was another one where somebody went over the canal bridge and crashed.

“It’s a bad humpback bridge, and if you go over it at any speed, your stomach jumps, you lift off the ground and drift over to one side and into the wall or the trees.

“It’s so sad that this has happened to the Thompson family and I send my condolences to them. We should do everything we can to prevent a tragedy like this happening again.”

Oliver Starkey, head of public realm for Burnley, said: “We were very sorry to hear about this tragic accident.

“We will consider the police report when it is available, to see if anything could reasonably be done to prevent a similar accident in the future.”

An 18-year-old man has been released on bail after he was arrested on suspicion of causing death by dangerous driving.