New Cumnock A76 road safety meeting cancelled on day of schoolgirl's death

An urgent meeting on the safety of a road was cancelled after a schoolgirl was killed by a tractor on it the same day.

East Ayrshire Council had arranged to meet at Naomi Ferrans’ primary school in New Cumnock to discuss concerns with the A76, which runs through the village, on Monday evening.

Those talks were organised after another child was hit by a vehicle last week, but were cancelled after the nine-year-old was struck down in the afternoon.

Naomi was pronounced dead at the scene after being knocked down by the farming vehicle near Castle Place.

Police closed the road for several hours after the incident. A76 New Cumnock STV News

The council said there were “no plans” to reschedule the meeting at this stage, however Labour councillor William Crawford told STV News traffic build up had been a “repeated concern” in recent months.

“It gets brought up all the time, about the amount of traffic and heavy goods traffic,” he said.

“It’s the first gateway into East Ayrshire from down south. It needs to be better.”

Floral tributes have been left in the area bearing messages of condolence while support has been made available to staff and pupils at New Cumnock Primary.

Online, family friends described Naomi as “a little angel,” while Cumnock Juniors Girls – the youth football club for whom she played as a goalkeeper – said she would be “with them always”.

A spokesperson for East Ayrshire Council said: “We understand that the meeting was cancelled due to the live incident ongoing at the time.

“The road was closed due to live investigations following Naomi’s accident and therefore there was no access to the meeting location.

“At this early stage, the school has no plans to reschedule the meeting, for obvious reasons.”