Builder set to live on Hamilton site of triple fatal car smash

Mar 18 2010 by Gary Fanning, Hamilton Advertiser

A BUILDER this week told how he plans to live in a house set to be constructed on the site of a triple fatal road accident.

Dad-of-one Andrew Morrison (27), Anthony Stewart (35) and 19-year-old Derek Campbell died on Saturday, January 31 2009, when the Ford Mondeo in which they were travelling hit a lamppost, crashed through a fence and slammed into the side of the house at 42 Dalton Hill.

The three-bedroom villa’s occupants, Robert and Margaret Gordon, and their 20-year student daughter Stephanie, cheated death and walked out of their property unscathed.

Half the home was knocked away in the crash and the remainder of the house was later demolished.

The Gordons have sold the land on which the house stood to a builder.

Gaughan Builders Ltd, based at 47 Clydesdale Street, Hamilton, last week lodged plans with South Lanarkshire Council to erect a four-bedroom detached two-storey home at the site.

The planning application includes four parking spaces.

The Advertiser called the builders about their application and a receptionist there put us through to a man who refused to give his name, but said: “I don’t know the family but I bought the land from them.

“I am going to live there myself.

“I don’t have any problem with that.

“It’s not as if the accident happened at the home.”

The man said if the application was approved he plans to move into the completed house in six months.

He added: “I don’t want to be named because I am private person.

“People will get to know who I am when I move in to the house.”

The accident occurred when the Ford Mondeo went out of control on bend on the Earnock Road.

People living near the crash scene said it was an “accident waiting to happen” and called for action to curb speeding drivers on Earnock road.

They complained to South Lanarkshire Council about the number of accidents there.

On Tuesday, a spokesman for the council said a number of measures had been introduced to curb the speed of vehicles using the road.

From March 16 last year, the speed limit was reduced from 40mph to 30mph.

‘Countdown’ signs have also been erected on both sides of the road warning drivers of the speed limit.

Rumble strips were placed on the carriageway to reinforce the effectiveness of the countdown signs.

White lines have been painted on the carriageway, similar in appearance to rumble strips, again, to augment the countdown signs.

The spokesman added: “At the start of the 30mph speed limit, a ‘gateway’ effect has been created by the use of 30mph signs, incorporating the legend “Hamilton”, red surfacing on the carriageway and a ‘30’ roundel painted on the carriageway.

“Edge lines have been painted on both sides of the road and the centre lines renewed, to emphasise the narrowness of the road.

“The existing bend warning sign in advance of the bend, and the chevron sign at the apex of the bend, have been replaced with more conspicuous versions of the same sign.”

Signs activated by the speed of vehicles have been erected on the approaches to the tight bend on the road and in the vicinity of the school crossing patroller.