SAFETY improvement works on Appleby’s Long Marton Road, known as ‘Flashing Lane’, have been completed ahead of the Appleby Horse Fair. 

The improvement works include the removal of the damaged wooden fencing and installation of a newly-constructed footway from the access to Fair Hill to the Rising Sun corner on the northeast side of the carriageway, with temporary pedestrian guardrails, installed for the duration of the Fair.

Chair of the Multi-Agency Strategic Coordinating Group (MASCG) and Westmorland and Furness Council’s director for thriving places, Steph Cordon, said: "Safety is a key focus for all partners in the MASCG.

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"We’ve already received positive feedback and the new arrangements seem to work well for road users and pedestrians."

Gypsy and Traveller representative, Billy Welch, said: "We have been aware for a few years that the wooden barriers had reached the end of their useful life, and since the market field opened next to Long Marton Road there have been more and more pedestrians mixing with the fast horses. 

"The Highways Department has managed to do it without reducing the width of the road, and we think it will work well.

"There are still some risks associated with fast horses, so we ask pedestrians to mind their backs and to keep off the road as far as possible, and we ask horse owners to use the new tethering lines and not to tie horses to the barriers. 

"We would like to thank the Westmorland and Furness Council for the time and trouble they have taken to improve safety for everyone," he said.