A CONFUSING interchange has become a hotspot for accidents and near-misses according to campaigners who are trying to reduce the speed limit and improve the layout on the dangerous road.

Campaigners are pressurising the Highways Agency to improve the safety on the A34 slip-road at Tufton Interchange, heading north into Whitchurch.

They want to reduce the speed limit of 60mph on the first right-hand corner of the slip road, and to improve the layout where it intersects with a country lane called Nun’s Walk.

They claim the layout of the road is confusing, and results in drivers going the wrong way.

Campaigners have set up a blog which shows correspondence with the Highways Agency and incidents that have happened on the road.

On November 6, a driver reported travelling to Tufton and witnessing a car going up the slip-road the wrong way and meeting an ambulance driving in the opposite direction.

The driver posted: “The ambulance used its blue lights to warn other drivers, whilst the car driver did a three-point turn and came back down.”

Mike Stead, from Newbury Street, Whitchurch, has been campaigning for more than a year for action to be taken. He believes there is a “fundamental error” in the design of the road.

He said the 60mph limit is “stupidly fast” for the slip-road, adding: “At that speed, you have to cut the corner or your car will come off the road.”

The 40-year-old father-of-three, who is an IT consultant, claims many people have witnessed vehicles exiting the slip-road and then veering to the right side of the road and into the path of oncoming traffic heading to Tufton.

He added: “Likewise, many have witnessed vehicles driving up the slip-road into the face of exiting traffic, wrongly thinking they can then head north.”

An assistant asset manager for the Highways Agency responded to campaigners to say that “potential options” that might reduce driver error, including going the wrong way up the slip-road, had been investigated.

But the assistant manager added: “Any funding towards a scheme would require evidence that it would reduce recorded accidents.”

Mr Stead, who fears someone will die before the Highways Agency acts, said: “Every time I hear sirens going I think: ‘Is this going to be the day that friends, family or neighbours are seriously injured or killed.’ It’s inevitable that it’s going to happen.”

Phil Sheppard, asset development manager at the Highways Agency, told The Gazette that it regularly reviews the safety of its roads. He added: “We also use data provided by the police to understand why accidents happen.

“The four collisions which have occurred at the A34 junction with Nun's Walk and Winchester Road over the past 10 years have been on the northbound exit slip-road, and the road layout has not been deemed a contributory factor. We will, however, continue to monitor safety at this location.”