Bridge hold-ups

With Shropshire schools breaking up for the Easter holidays this week the A458 Shropshire to Welshpool road still has temporary traffic lights three months after a lorry crash.

Two heavy goods vehicles collided on the Cefn bridge over the railway line causing major damage to the bridge.

Local councillors have been pressing for information about when repairs are going to take place.

They also want to see permanent safety changes brought in on the road which has seen a number of accidents.

The Welsh government has said that there are no additional safety measures planned as part of the repair works.

It says that over the Easter bank holiday the lights were likely to be controlled manually to minimise delays.

A statement from the Welsh office said: “Cefn Bridge has been identified previously as a Local Safety Scheme site due to the numbers of injury accidents at this site.

“Whilst improvements to date have reduced both accident numbers and severity, there are ongoing collisions at the site as witnessed by the recent incident and subsequent works.

“Welsh Government will continue to monitor the site and if necessary consider further safety measures. Additional measures are not currently planned as part of the repair works. Once the repairs are complete the temporary traffic lights will be removed.”

Talking about the repair work the statement said: “The inspection from trackside has taken place and thus the parapet replacement design is ongoing. This includes working with the specialist contractors necessary due to working above a live railway.

“A date is not yet known for when the physical works will take place – as I have previously mentioned the situation here is a complicated one hence why the process is a long and slow one. Rest assured we are working to get the temporary traffic lights removed at the earliest opportunity.

“We are gearing up to manually control the lights over the Bank Holiday period and thus manage traffic flows to minimise delays.”