A Royston county councillor has revealed that changes could be afoot for one junction on a dangerous stretch of the A505 – but says a lack of further action is “not good enough”.
Councillor Steve Jarvis, who represents the Royston West & Rural division on Herts County Council, attended a meeting with the authority’s highways department last week to discuss proposed changes to the stretch between Royston and Baldock, which has been blighted with accidents for decades.
A proposed change includes banning right-hand turns at the Litlington junction.
Mr Jarvis said: “The small piece of good news is that they have decided that work on banning right turns from the Litlington turning is something that can be funded from the safety budget – this is apparently the junction with the worst record of accidents where somebody has been injured.
“This means that the changes should be designed next year and the work done the year after.
“Changes at any of the other junctions, which could cost up to about £4 million, will just be added to a list of things to be done at some time in the future.
“The idea seems to be that they might be funded from future developments, which means that nothing will happen for at least 10 years, probably longer. “This is clearly not good enough. If it is going to take that long to find the several million pounds that any of the changes will cost we need something done in the meantime.
“An obvious solution would be to cut the speed limit to 50mph past the Ashwell station junction at least.
“I have told them that they need to do something to improve the safety in the short term while they are looking for the money for the “ultimate” scheme and the engineers have agreed to look into this. They can’t tell me when this will be done, but have promised that they will tell me within a couple of weeks.”
A spokeswoman for Herts County Council said: “We take Councillor Jarvis’, and all, safety concerns seriously and to help us understand the use of this road, a very detailed reported has been produced to assist both officers and members to determine the most appropriate way forward.”
The Crow has been campaigning for changes to be made, with our Make the A505 Safer petition gaining more than 3,000 signatures.
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