Jonathan Sellman

poe Kennedys
our rot
Ventana House _
2 Concourse Way, Sheaf Street
Sheffield $1 2BJ
United Kingdom

Mr Dorries T +44 1142 532 000
Senior Coroner for South Yorkshire F +44 1142 532 001
The Medico-Legal Centre DX 10528 Sheffield ;
Watery Street www.kennedyslaw.com
Sheffield

S3 7ET Direct Dial

Dear Sirs

MR JONATHAN SELLMAN (DECEASED) -V- ROTHERHAM MBC

We write on behalf of the Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council (Rotherham MBC)
in response to Mr Dorries’ (HM Senior Coroner) Regulation 28 Report dated 17 August
2016.

Mr Dorries’ concerns relate to the circumstances touching the death of Mr Sellman,
whose vehicle left the Sheffield Parkway (A630), travelling towards Junction 33 on
the morning of 28 March 2016. It is noted that Mr Dorries states at section 4 of his
said report that: ‘subject to investigation in greater detail at the Inquest, it appears
on a preliminary basis that Mr Sellman lost control because of standing water on the
carriageway’ and that he expressed the following concerns at section 5 of the said
report:

(1) Water appears to be pooling on the carriageway of this fast and busy road,
notwithstanding that the local authority considered the drainage to have been
broadly operative at the material time;

(2)The state of the verge is as such that a car might be pushed upwards on leaving
the road out of control, landing on or over the Armco barrier.

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Rotherham MBC takes Mr Dorries’ concerns extremely seriously and has taken a
number of steps since the accident to meet these concerns including the following:

(i) it has commissioned a thorough and independent inspection of
the A630 at the accident locus and its vicinity;
(ii) it has undertaken extensive surveying of the highway drainage

system at the relevant location to enable a thorough assessment
of its suitability;

(iii) when undertaking its regular inspections of the highway by way
of monthly driven inspections, the highway inspector is now
accompanied by a drainage supervisor;

(iv) it has purchased a dash cam and implemented a system whereby
a design technician drives along the Parkway to monitor the
situation during periods of heavy rain.

The above-mentioned investigations support the following conclusions:

(i) the A630 was built in the 1960s and the geometry of this
highway is appropriate and adheres to relevant construction
standards;

(ii) the capacity of the drainage system on the approach to and
at the accident locus, including gully spacing and the capacity
of the pipework for the receiving carrier drains is more than
adequate to drain the road satisfactorily during periods of
heavy rainfall and was functioning in accordance with its
capacity at the relevant time;

(iti) the construction of the road itself and the drainage system
does not give rise to a risk that there will be ‘standing water’
or ‘pools of water’ on the carriageway;

(iv) Rotherham has long established procedures for the
maintenance of the highway at the accident locus, which are
jn accordance with and in fact exceed National standards and
which may be summarised as follows: -

® maintenance of the eastbound and westbound carriageway is
scheduled to take place three times a year on two consecutive
Sundays. A temporary traffic order is made to close individual
lanes in order for the maintenance works to be undertaken. The
works commence early in the day and finish at 10.00 am to
avoid traffic congestion and the Police monitor traffic on the
day, especially on the M1 motorway, and may require the
curtailment of the maintenance works as necessary due to
traffic congestion;

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Kennedys

e the said maintenance works include the cleansing of gullies and,
where necessary, gully connections;

(v) Rotherham undertakes regular inspections of the highway by
way of monthly driven inspections by a highway inspector and,
since the accident, who is now accompanied by a drainage
supervisor;

(vi) in addition to its regimes of scheduled maintenance and
inspection, Rotherham also relies upon reports from members
of the public and/or the Police to report any concerns that
might arise in the meantime;

(vii) the evidence suggests that the two gullies adjacent to the
central reservation (at the accident locus) were functioning
correctly at the time of the accident;

(viii) further evidence indicates that on 10 April 2016 the gully - GF3
- to the west of the accident locus was recorded as blocked. If
it was also blocked on 28 March 2016 (which has not been
established) this situation would have caused added pressure on
the adjacent downstream gullies: however, this scenario would
not have caused water to flow across the carriageway because
the system is constructed to accommodate such ‘blockages’.
The water would simply have travelled along to the next point
of exit;

(ix) it is significant to note from a video taken from a Police car at
07:26 hours on the day of the accident, that whilst there was
clearly surface water flowing across the eastbound carriageway,
as might be expected during a period of heavy rain, these
conditions did not cause the driver to deem it necessary to
lower his speed below 84 miles per hour;

(x) the verges of the highway comprise compacted ‘dirt’ and are no
different to substantial tracts of highway across the country. It
is not possible to say what (if any) role the relevant verges had
in respect of Mr Sellman’s accident in the absence of any
information about his speed or trajectory or the general
circumstances in which he lost control of his motor car;

(xi) there is no basis upon which to identify the A630 Sheffield
Parkway as a high risk carriageway from a road safety point of
view: furthermore, approximately 50,000 vehicles travel on the
Parkway on a daily basis.

Yours sincerely

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