VILLAGERS have decided the only way to make the deathtrap dock spur roundabout safer is to separate traffic going to Felixstowe's port and the town.

the only way to make the deathtrap dock spur roundabout safer is to separate traffic going to Felixstowe's port and the town, villagers have decided.

Trimley St Mary Parish Council has chosen the second of four options for major work at the A14 junction – and is now urging highways chiefs to get on with the scheme as quickly as possible.

The Highways Agency is consulting widely on the options for the future to find out what people believe is the solution to stop the problem of lorries overturning.

Parish councillors were told the roundabout is the busiest for HGVs in the whole of the country and it would be difficult to avoid some crashes – but the priority was to prevent a further fatal accident.

It is now more than two months since motorist Martin O'Sullivan was killed when a lorry flipped over crushing his car and campaigners have been working hard to secure safety improvements.

The Bedford-based Highways Agency has drawn up four potential solutions, costed tentatively between £120,000 and £385,000.

These are imposing speed limits, cutting the roundabout's size, realigning the approach road, and siphoning off traffic which is heading for Felixstowe.

Trimley St Mary Parish Council has chosen the last of these estimated to cost around £198,000.

It would mean that as traffic approached the roundabout from Ipswich it would be sent into two lanes – one for the port and one for the town.

There would be a substantial concrete island to separate the traffic on the approach and on the roundabout, and this would be designed so that if a lorry did overturn, it would not land on traffic bound for Felixstowe.

A large embankment will also be built to cut visibility to the right to force drivers to slow down.

Parish clerk George Harlow said the agency had indicated that the most expensive option of creating a smaller roundabout was not likely to find favour because of the cost.

Councillor Mary Dixon said: "I think this option will answer a lot of people's concerns."