Councillor: Road improvements near Market Drayton will save lives
"Life-saving" improvements to a road near Market Drayton will mean diversions for four weeks but they are necessary to prevent future tragedies, a councillor said.
The Mount Pleasant crossroads on the A529, about three miles south of Market Drayton, is the subject of extensive works including the installation of new kerbs, surfaces, markings and traffic signs, which started on Tuesday.
A Market Drayton town councillor and ambulance driver said the site was a dangerous blackspot and that the inconvenience of the closures was necessary to prevent future deaths.
The work means the minor road on the west side of the junction, leading to Wistanswick, will be closed for four weeks from this week. The A529 around the crossroads itself will be closed for this and next week between 9.30am and 4pm. It will then have temporary traffic lights between those times for a further fortnight.
While the crossroads is closed motorists can use the nearby A41. Diversions will be sign posted.
Saving lives
Market Drayton Town Council's Mark Whittle, who works for the West Midlands Ambulance Service, said: "It is a blackspot.
"True, it might be an inconvenience at the moment, but it's worth it if it's saving lives.
"The benefit is directly to the people of the town and the outlying villages.
"We've got to bite the bullet and do this job.
"I know people will be upset about the inconvenience but it will stop some family having a traumatic accident happen to them.
"It's happened to too many families in our town and in the surrounding villages."
The roadworks at the Mount Pleasant crossroads are the first stage of a £3.9 million programme to improve safety on the A529 between Hinstock and Audlem.
It was announced last year that the money would come from the Department for Transport’s Safer Roads Fund after Shropshire Council successfully made the case that the road needs improvements.
Shropshire Council said that between January 2012 and July 2017, there were five fatalities and 12 serious crashes on the A529 between Hinstock and Audlem, plus 60 more minor collisions.
Rob Gittins, a Shropshire Councillor who represents Cheswardine, said part of the danger at the Mount Pleasant crossroads is a dip on the road to the west from Wistanswick.
He said the crossroads had been identified as the "worst accident cluster" on the affected stretch of the A529.
