Safety improvements to accident blackspot

The viaduct on the Chirk bypass has seen countless accidents as impatient drivers overtake on the bridge high above the River Ceiriog.

Now the Welsh Assembly, responsible for the trunk road which carries both the A5 and the A483, has completed safety works on the carriageway.

Contractors have repaired barriers, damaged in the latest accident earlier this year and have also put a wide, red hatched area along the central reservation.

The Improvements have been carried out at a cost of £700,000.

Local people have welcomed the move fearing another tragedy on the bridge which stands 140 foot high.

MP for the area, Susan Elan Jones, brought the worries about the road up in a parliamentary question.

Councillor Terry Evans has been campaigning for improvements for many years.

"Whenever there is an accident on the bypass, the traffic has to divert through Chirk and it causes chaos," he said.

The aim of the red markings is to stop drivers overtaking, without putting a central barrier on the road.

In June firefighters had to work within feet of the drop into the valley to release a woman from the wreckage of a vehicle involved in a collision with a barrier. Her car came to a rest precariously close to the edge of the bridge parapet.

In 2015 two brothers in a tractor were left in shock when their vehicle hit the barriers and came to rest with one wheel hanging over the bridge.

Two men were killed in a road accident on the bridge in 2010. Stuart Davies and William Thomas Hefin Jones died when a cattle lorry and a car were involved in a collision.

Cows being transported in a wagon also fell to their deaths when they escaped from the vehicle following the crash only to plunge over the parapet of the bridge into the valley below. Others had to be put down by vets in the cattle lorry because of their injuries.

After the crash a petition calling for improvement was signed by more than 500 people.