A SPECIAL report into options for making an accident blackspot safer, seen by ‘the Advertiser’ makes it clear that the cost was considered too high to be justified.

The report looked at two options for improving safety at the Salwey Arms in Woofferton, near its junction with the A456 towards Little Hereford, Tenbury and then on to Kidderminster.

Engineers looked at the possibility of putting in a single roundabout and also a double roundabout solution.

But the cost of the single roundabout option was more than £16 million and the double roundabout option would have cost over £14 million.

Both of the solutions would have involved the acquisition of land.

A single large four arm roundabout would be the best solution says the report as this would have slowed traffic and also had the capacity to cope with higher numbers of vehicles in the future but the £16 million price tag did not include land purchases that would be necessary.

Experts also looked at the ‘cheaper’ option of a double roundabout design although this would have cost in excess of £14 million not including and land purchases.

This would also have been less effective, less able to cope with increased capacity and also resulted in potential delays.

However, in any event both solutions fell short of the cost benefit that highways chiefs need to meet to justify schemes.

The two options were presented at a Value Management session with National Highways and following discussions it was decided not to progress these options any further.

Vivienne Parry, Shropshire councillor for Ludlow south, who has been one of the leaders in the campaign for measures to make the stretch of road safer, says that she is ‘astonished’ by the costs involved.

“I do not know where this leaves us or how things might be taken forward,” said Mrs Parry.

The junction has seen a number of serious accidents over the years including fatalities as well as many minor shunts.