HIGHWAY chiefs are assessing the speed and number of vehicles on a road used as a “rat run” by motorists.

Sean Toner, 43, who lives in Ermine Road, Hoole, where the traffic monitoring device has been fitted, has been calling for traffic-calming in the street after his garden wall was demolished by a car.

He believes a new, staggered parking arrangement may have caused drivers to speed up on the clear section of road outside his house.

The “black box” has been fitted to assess the effects of the new parking lay-out but will be moved on to the section nearer Mr Toner’s house if it appears the results do not give an accurate representation of the true conditions.

Mr Toner is thankful neither of his two young daughters was in the way when the Volkswagen ploughed over the pavement, smashed through a wall and knocked over two gate posts early last month.

It is not known whether speed was a factor in the accident, which happened when the car misjudged an overtaking manoeuvre around a bin wagon.

The male driver escaped with minor injuries.

But it was the last straw for Mr Toner who says many motorists put their foot down on the stretch of Ermine Road toward the junction with Brook Lane, having experienced frustration in the moments before.

That’s because traffic coming from Hoole Road has to navigate the new, staggered parking arrangement while drivers coming the other way have just emerged from the traffic-calmed Brook Lane.

He said of the collision: “If there had been a child on the pavement that would have been it.”

Mr Toner, a financial adviser, wants traffic calming on the section by the old railway bridge, which goes over the road, to protect pedestrians and he understands it was on a county council priority list but there was no money to carry out the work.

Engineering assistant Kay Parry, of Cheshire County Council, said the “black box” had been installed to collect traffic data on the road, both for speed and volume of traffic.

The location for the counter was chosen to be near to where readings were taken before the changes were made to the waiting restrictions, between Gresford Avenue and South Avenue, to give a representation of the effect of the changes.

She said: “It should therefore allow us to assess motorists’ speeds along the length where there is no parking on the east side of the road.

“If, when we receive the data, it does not appear to give a true representation of the conditions on Ermine Road I will arrange for a further count to be carried out at the northerly end of the road.”