COPDOCK: Suffolk’s Liberal Democrat group leader Kathy Pollard has today become the latest high-profile politician in Suffolk to hit out at Highways Agency proposals to install more traffic lights on the Copdock Mill roundabout.

The councillor at Endeavour House said the Agency’s proposal to install more traffic lights would make a bad junction even worse.

She said: “The Copdock Mill roundabout was not fit for purpose on the day it opened. Traffic turning right from the A12 towards Felixstowe should have been given a dedicated slip road.”

She warned that recent proposals would lead to more rat-running along nearby roads, including the Old London Road, in Copdock, which was the scene of Friday’s fatal collision in which Suffolk estate agent Philip Scarff died.

Mrs Pollard said traffic would move more easily if simple steps were taken.

She said: “The exit from the A1214 on to the roundabout would be much improved if the vegetation in the centre were cut back to allow a better view of traffic approaching from the right.”

Mrs Pollard’s intervention comes after Tory MPs Tim Yeo and Ben Gummer wrote a letter to the Highways Agency demanding that proposals to install more traffic lights on the junction should be dropped because of the fear this could cause more delays and encourage more traffic to use rat-runs.

However, the agency still believes that traffic lights are the answer.

A spokesman said: “The lights at the Copdock Interchange would form a key role in helping the ever- increasing volumes of traffic to keep moving through this busy interchange.

“The agency is currently in discussion with Suffolk County Council about the final format of changes to the A14/A12 Copdock Interchange and will listen to all comments from interested parties.”

n Should there be more lights on the Copdock Mill roundabout? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN, or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk

n Kathy Pollard’s letter in full – page 8