ROAD safety campaigners have welcomed news that work will begin on an accident blackspot near Dolgellau this month.

The announcement that work to create a roundabout on the A470/A494 Bala road will be started before the end of March has come from the Welsh Government’s Transport Minister Edwina Hart AM.

The work is expected to be completed by the end of May.

She also announced that, while initial work on the other proposed roundabout in Dolgellau, on the A470/A494 Tywyn Road, has proven more difficult the design work is now being finalised.

The controversial junctions have been subject to temporary traffic lights for nearly two years after a series of horror crashes and collisions took place on the short stretch of road.

Both John Roach, 83, and Kevin John Haddock, 56, died at the junction of the A470 and the A494 in 2014, the fatalities occurring just weeks apart.

Both fatal collisions involved cars turning right out of the A494 junction, and heading north on the A470.

Following the inquests into their deaths last year, senior coroner for North Wales Dewi Pritchard Jones called for a roundabout to be installed at the dangerous junction, where six serious crashes have occurred since 2010.

Town councillor and long time protester Cllr John Raghoobar was delighted that progress was being made.

“I welcome the news, it’s a testament to the effect people power can have when we group together to fight for a worthy cause.

“Credit should go to the people who stood at the roadside and let the Welsh Government know that something had to change, to the members of the A470 SOS Group who campaigned diligently and to the families who lost loved ones and bravely took up to the fight to rectify the road.

“Perversely their tragic loss is Dolgellau’s gain and we cannot extend our thanks, sympathies and condolences enough.

“These are the people who woke up the politicians and made them do their jobs. I’m delighted the work looks set to be completed almost a year before the original deadline of 2017 was set.”

See the full story in this week’s Meirionnydd edition of the Cambrian News