SAFETY work is set to start this month in a Felixstowe town centre street where there have been a string of accidents at junctions.

SAFETY work is set to start this month in a Felixstowe town centre street where there have been a string of accidents at junctions.

Concern has, however, been voiced that the project could cause another street to be used as a “rat run” to avoid the traffic calming.

Suffolk County Council has drawn up a scheme costing tens of thousands of pounds to build tabletop road humps in Cobbold Road at the junctions of Cowley Road and Leopold Road, along with extended parking restrictions.

There will also be new parking restrictions at the junctions of Princes Road, Queens Road and Tomline Road - with the aim to increase visibility at the junctions to help drivers pulling out into Cobbold Road.

The street is one of the main roads to the town centre, connecting Garrison Lane and the Crescent Road/Hamilton Road traffic lights and is used by hundreds of schoolchildren going to and from Deben High School on bikes and on foot every day.

Town councillor Mike Stokell feared the work would turn St Andrews Road into a rat run and make the junctions of that road dangerous instead.

“I think putting these raised humps in Cobbold Road will just shift the problems to St Andrew's Road because drivers will want to avoid the going up and down,” he told the finance and general purposes committee.

“It will just mean problems and accidents instead at the all the junctions in St Andrew's.”

Councillor Mike Ninnmey added: “When traffic calming was put in place in Maidstone Road we had the same situation - drivers simply find alternative routes.”

Suffolk County Council said the work is expected to take three weeks and during it Cobbold Road will be closed between Garrison Lane and the Crescent Road car park entrance.

Will the road humps and yellow lines work? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN, or e-mail EveningStarLetters@eveningstar.co.uk