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'Cards on table' demand over junction safety saga

Tom MacDougallNorth East and Cumbria
News imageJohn Rhind An accident at the crossroads near Swinhoe. A car has crashed into a stone wall and remains suspended half in the air and half in a field. It has also hit a stop sign with a 30mph speed limit warning beneath it. At the junction there is a solid, white line and the word "Stop" painted on the road. Fields spread out into a foggy horizon, under a grey sky.John Rhind
A petition to improve safety at the junction near Swinhoe was presented back in April 2024

The man who two and a half years ago presented a thousand-signature petition demanding changes to a "dangerous" road junction has called on the local council to lay its "cards on the table" and reveal its plans.

John Rhind, from Beadnall, organised calls for improved safety measures on the B1340 near Swinhoe, Northumberland, where several accidents have happened over almost a century.

Northumberland County Council said plans for the crossroads were progressing through the design, consultation and approval stages, but Rhind said: "If they have a plan, there's no question of being open or transparent about it."

The authority said residents would be "updated as the project progresses".

Three options had been proposed by Northumberland Council:

  • realign the crossroads to improve visibility and make the system easier to understand
  • replace the junction with a compact roundabout
  • create a staggered junction.

A public consultation into the options was closed at the end of June and the council said the project had secured funding, but it was "important to ensure the final scheme is evidence-based, deliverable and provides long-term benefits for road users".

It added: "It is important to ensure public money is invested appropriately."

News imageNorthumberland County Council The layout of the junction. Despite being a crossroads, the two turnings off the left and right of the B1340 do not directly align. One of the turnings has its view of incoming traffic blocked by a stone building and has been turned into a "Stop" junction with a solid, white line. Northumberland County Council
Questions over the safety of the junction date back to 1928

Rhind said: "Petitioners know this takes time and there are probably complications and things that have got to be done.

"But when is it going to happen and what are the steps to make it happen?

"Everyone has had some experience of either a near miss, a close shave, or an actual collision.

"I want to see the council putting their cards on the table and saying: 'Right, our preferred option is this and we're going to implement it over the next six months by doing this, this, and this'."

The first recorded accident at the junction took place in 1928, but Belford Rural District Council declined to spend £400 on demolishing a blacksmiths' workshop to improve visibility, painting a solid stop line on the road instead.

A weary Rhind said: "Let's try and get it done before the centenary of that arrives."

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