Safety work starts on road where five people died

Work to improve safety on a road where five people have died in the last five years, has begun.

Somerset Council is installing measures on the A361 Frome bypass, including reducing the speed limit from 60mph to 50mph and 40mph on the A362 approach.

Frome and East Somerset Lib Dem MP Anna Sabine said: "For the sake of slightly slowing down one's journey to not risk people's lives it's definitely worth it."

Sabine said while the changes were "a good first step", she also wanted to see further safety measures such as roundabout or traffic lights at the A362 junction.

Sabine said some people vocal on social media "seem to think they're the world's greatest drivers and reducing speed limits makes no difference".

"The evidence shows that reducing speed limits does improve safety and I would urge people to heed that," said Sabine.

"I wish that some of these people had, as I have done, met the families of people who have lost relatives either at that junction or elsewhere: it does devastate lives, none of us would want that happening to us," she added.

Along with the reduction in speed limit, the junction with the A362 will also be resurfaced, with hatching installed along the centre of the bypass.

Nick Cowling, service manager for road safety at Somerset Council, said the central hatching would "help people keep to the speed limit and reduce the risk of vehicles having head-on collisions".

It comes after AI cameras were positioned on the bypass last year by Avon and Somerset Police to detect poor driving such as drivers using mobile phones, not wearing seatbelts and speeding.

The cameras logged 4,500 offences in their first four months of operation, according to Somerset Council.

"It's not just about engineering, we work with the police on enforcement - it's a combined approach with engineering, education [and] enforcement to change behaviour and try to make the road safer," said Cowling.

Sabine said she wanted to see a "more structural intervention" installed on the road in future.

"We've had five fatalities in five years on this bypass. It's totally unacceptable," she said.

"If you talk to people that live in Frome, they know how dangerous it is, they know how unsafe they feel using the junction, and how worried they are if they, like me, have teenagers learning to drive," she added.

Councillor Richard Wilkins, Somerset Council's Lib Dem lead member for transport said the council was "continuing to develop plans" to further improve the safety of the junction.

He said the outcome of a feasibility report was due soon, which the council will then review and "consider next steps around this".

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