Editor

From Waunfawr to the railway bridge en route to Bow Street has been an extremely dangerous road in both directions for several decades.

This is not a new thing. Numerous serious and fatal collisions have occurred at various points along this road between these two locations.

Police Road Traffic investigation determines the known or likely cause of each collision where there is a fatality or the injuries are such that someone involved may die.

The data from these investigations feeds into the Home Office Statistical Analysis that has been issued every 10 years. That analysis will provide data sets that will inform the Highways Department, Welsh Assembly, and other responsible persons, as to what is the predominant problem.

Road design publications will inform these persons as to what solutions are needed. Reducing the speed limit is always the easy solution as it is cheap and straightforward.

Indeed, it’s normally the ‘go to’ method of those not involved in road design, policing, or first response.

But paint-on signs aren’t the answer. The problem is the dip and blind summit between Waunfawr and Comins. There is a short egress from the junction at the top of the blind summit on the A road from the railway bridge. Also you can face blinding sunlight from the hill top at the Waunfawr end at certain times of the year. And the Comins junction is atrocious.

This stretch of road along its whole length has taken far too many lives; it’s time for those in power to take action and sort out the whole stretch. Better road design is needed to reduce the opportunity to overtake, design that levels out the dip, design that effectively deals with the Comins junction. Design that provides a longer stopping area at the top of the slope before the egress from the ford, and design that introduces physical traffic-calming obstacles like those that exist elsewhere on other A roads. It ain’t rocket science, the data and the solutions are there, but no-one seems to care enough to do anything.

They do road improvements where people aren’t being killed.

Maybe one day they will see sense. Meanwhile, please stop acting like it’s a new problem. It’s not, it’s actually a very old problem.

Indeed the problem is several decades old, but it’s as if there’s no desire to put it right.

Roger Bennett Penrhyncoch

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