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RESIDENTS have won a victory in their campaign for modifications to a controversial traffic calming scheme at Haverhill, which they say does not work and has turned their estate into a race track.

About 40 residents joined MP Richard Spring on Friday to meet Stephen Day of St Edmundsbury Borough Council's engineering department to discuss the problem, including protest organiser Chris Cullum and Tina Bailey who both live on the Chalkstone estate.

Mrs Bailey's daughter was killed on the estate 10 years ago, prompting the installation of speed humps.

Mrs Bailey has supported the protest against speed cushions, which have replaced the humps in a £40,000 scheme that residents say is a waste of money.

They say drivers are going straight through the gap in the middle of the cushions and are not slowing down.

Mr Cullum welcomed plans to modify the scheme, which he described as "a complete farce".

He said: "I am hoping they can find some money to sort it out, particularly on the top part of the estate.

"The problem is still there and it is not going to go away over night, but it needs action sooner rather than later."

At the meeting Mr Day accepted there was a problem with the scheme, which was supposed to reduce speeds to 20mph.

It had been created after complaints about the previous rounded humps, which were rather high and created problems for buses and other vehicles.

He said he would now be strongly recommending to councillors that further measures were provided, possibly converting some of the speed cushions into flat-topped ramps.

"Clearly this scheme is not achieving 20mph speeds in its current form," he said.

"We will be working with Chalkstone residents over the next three months to identify areas where it is not working particularly well and we will seek funding to do further work in the spring.

"We had always intended to monitor the scheme and modify it if necessary."