A DRIVING instructor says a notorious junction is still dangerous despite a major revamp.

Clive Geary, of Weston Rhyn, is demanding that Highways England ‘fix’ Maesbury Road junction –which underwent several months of works earlier his year – after seeing several near-misses.

He said: “On several occasions now, I have witnessed vehicles passing the red traffic light, going beyond the stop line and actually stopping out on the A483, in the path of oncoming traffic from the Mile End direction.”

Mr Geary added that drivers are seeing the traffic light on the far side of the A483, which repeats the light that they should have stopped at.

“The line dividing the lanes has been extended out onto the A483 making is less clear where you need to stop,” he said, “Removing those unnecessary lines would make it easier for drivers to see where they should stop when they see a red light.”

The instructor said the first set of lights from the Welshpool direction are “poorly–sited” and obscured by signs. “This means that if a high sided vehicle is in the right-hand land a vehicle in the left lane can completely miss the first set of lights and think the next set, protecting the turn for the industrial estate are for them and therefore pass a red signal,” he said.

He added the lights protecting the right turn onto the industrial estate could be confused with the very first set for traffic entering the A483 from Maesbury.

Mr Geary said that he had witnessed several occasions where vehicles nearly hit traffic entering the A483 from Maesbury. A slip road on the A483 to allow direct access onto the industrial estate was also cited as a problem.

“This slip road is not traffic light-controlled. But due to the location of the second set of traffic lights, vehicles are confusing a red stop signal which is not for them and stopping when they do not need to, leading to the risk of rear-end collisions. Or when they are entering the slip road, as it is not clear, they are failing to give way to traffic making a right turn onto the industrial estate from the Mile End direction.

“This junction was modified as the previous layout was deemed to be unsafe,” he added.

“The new layout is confusing and therefore is also unsafe. Surely a cheaper and safer option requiring less maintenance would have been a roundabout. We should all demand better from Highways England. Maesbury Road junction is dangerous… fix it!”

Jessica Kenny, senior project manager for Highways England, said: “We constantly review the safety of all junctions and where improvements have been made we’d encourage motorists to familiarise themselves with the new layout.

“Now work at this junction is complete, motorists will benefit from safer as well as smoother journeys.

“We’ve improved the layout of the junction by installing traffic signals to smooth the flow of traffic, reduce queuing on either side of the A483 and improve safety for both pedestrians and motorists.

“An additional lane has also been added in both the north and southbound directions to improve traffic flows and street lighting has been upgraded.”