SAFETY measures have been introduced at a problem junction on the A41 near Ellesmere Port where there have been road fatalities for 30 years.

The gap in the central reservation has been partially closed, for a trial period of 18 months, at the junction with Rake Lane and Station Road in Backford, near the turn-off for Cheshire Oaks.

Traffic from both of these single carriageway roads, which serve farmland, can now only turn left on to the A41.

Cheshire county and Chester city councillors on the local joint highways committee heard the pilot scheme will cost £10,000 to implement, while it will cost £25,000 to make it permanent.

In a three-year period from March 2004, there were 13 recorded personal injury collisions there, of which 12 involved vehicles crossing or attempting to cross the gap in the central reservation.

More recently, there have been two collisions involving vehicles crossing the gap.

A public meeting attended by Backford parish councillors and 50 residents heard mixed reactions, with some drivers claiming they would be inconvenienced and made to use an alternate route.

Area highways manager Colin Stredder said the situation will be monitored.

The committee heard that in recent years, a number of collisions have taken place involving vehicles crossing gaps in central reservations.

One of these was Great Sutton resident Martin Ferguson, who died in August 2003 when riding his new Kawasaki 1,000cc motorbike at the junction of the A41 and Pearl Lane in Vicars Cross, Chester.

He was in collision with a red Ford Fiesta and became trapped underneath it.

Mr Ferguson was taken to the Countess of Chester Hospital, where he died from head injuries shortly afterwards.

A year later, his widow Paula welcomed the decision by county highways to close the gap in the central reservation on the A41 at Vicars Cross in order to prevent any more fatalities.