Traffic humps fail noise test

THE first sleeping policeman to be removed from a British street was dug up by a local authority in London yesterday.

Council workers took away eight of the humps - normally loved by side- street residents and hated by rat-runners and ambulance drivers - from Egerton Road, in Twickenham, just 10 months after they were put in.

Residents who successfully campaigned to have the road humps removed because of increased traffic noise looked on as they were lifted. Harsha Shah said: "I am very happy they are going. The lorries from the council depot used to go over them so fast we'd be woken up at six in the morning by the noise. It was like a bomb going off."

Yasmin Skelt, 36, who led the anti-hump campaign, said she was delighted. "It means I'll be able to sleep. The pollution from cars stopping and accelerating has been terrible. You can smell it in the air. Individual people were writing in and the council was doing nothing. We were told once the humps go in they never come out."

But neighbours Elizabeth and Bill Sanderson were angry. "They did slow the traffic down and that made the road safer," said Mrs Sanderson, a mother of two. "I don't like the noise, but my main concern is that it's dangerous for children."