AN EMERGENCY meeting of friends of the Stroud commons has agreed actions for improving the safety of cows on the unfenced grasslands.

The extra session of the Minchinhampton and Rodborough Commons Advisory Committee was especially worried to learn that local motorists were involved in most of the accidents that had killed cattle since 2013.

The committee was called after widespread public concern following the deaths of both a calf and its mother in separate road crashes only just after the animals were released for their annual summer grazing on the commons in mid-May.

Hayward for the commons Mark Dawkins told the meeting an “enormous percentage” of the accidents since 2013 had involved people who lived nearby – at Besbury Park, Butterrow Hill, Bowl Hill, Blueboys Park, and Swell’s Hill all in Rodborough or Minchinhampton, and at Newmarket, Nailsworth, and King’s Stanley both also in Stroud.

“We have to get local drivers to understand the effect on the commons,” chairman Terry Robinson told the meeting on Wednesday evening.

“Without the grazing cattle these picturesque and scientifically important commons, which are enjoyed by thousands upon thousands of visitors every year, would eventually return to dense woodland and their abundant wildlife would be lost for ever,” he said.

The endangered cattle are also the livelihoods of farmers with grazing rights.

The committee agreed to ask the Gloucestershire County Council highways authority to redouble its efforts to improve warning signs on the commons’ roads.

Members were also convinced that further physical measures including better police enforcement of the 40mph speed limit and traffic calming should be investigated, but without urbanising the commons.

The MARCAC volunteer members and local council delegates are appointed by the National Trust to help guide the charity’s management of the very special open spaces.