Six months of night closures in safety upgrade on crash blackspot near Oswestry
A main road near Oswestry will face six months of overnight closures during improvement works.
Roads approaching Gledrid roundabout will be affected between 9pm and 6am from January 26 through to June 2 for works to be carried out on the roundabout and nearby roads.
Highways England was unable to confirm what the work involves, but it is believed to be part of a £700,000 scheme to improve the approaches to the roundabout from all directions to make the area safer.
The roundabout carries traffic on two trunk roads – the A5 and the A483.
There have long been calls to improve safety along the route from Gledrid to Ruabon.
But concerns have also been raised over the level of disruption it will cause – as well as how effective the outcome will be.
Councillor Ian Roberts, who represents Chirk North on Wrexham County Borough Council, said he feared what effect the disruption would have on Chirk.
He said: "A lot of work does need to be done on the A483 to improve safety but I am worried, especially when that disruption will affect Chirk and if I'm being truthful I'm not entirely confident the works will actually help the piece of road where the problems are."
"I've heard rumours this work may be happening but I haven't been told anything officially."
Councillor Terry Evans, who serves Chirk South, said: "I've been shouting out for improvements for a long, long time so of course I welcome this. They need to happen sooner rather than later.
"It is a tricky one, though, because when works like this take place Chirk can get used as a bit of a rat run. But at the same time something needs to be done, we've all been saying this for years, and we see accidents on pretty much a weekly basis, so I think it's about time something's done."
It comes after a petition was launched in August by Chirk resident Jonathan Brigstock calling for overtaking restrictions and an average speed camera system introduced between the Gledrid roundabout and the Halton roundabouts in order to reduce the number of crashes on that stretch of road.
Mark Round, a Highways England spokesman, said: "We continue to work with local stakeholders to minimise disruption and continue to work with the local community to keep them informed of all developments."
