£100k safety work to start at Wolverhampton Road crash blackspot

New traffic lights and a pedestrian crossing will be installed at the junction of Wolverhampton Road and Titford Road in Oldbury.

It comes after 24 people were injured at the junction, five seriously, in a spate of incidents over the last five years.

The improvement work will begin on Monday and is expected to take around three months to complete.

The scheme also includes footpath resurfacing, new signage and changes to the kerbs.

New paving will also be installed to aid visually-impaired people.

Highways bosses at Sandwell Council have taken action after 15 reported accidents at the busy junction since 2011.

Vehicles pull out from Titford Road onto the busy dual carriageway, near the Birchley Island, which carries a huge volume of traffic.

The work is likely to lead to delays on the Wolverhampton Road, with lane closures in place during daytime hours.

Councillor David Hosell, cabinet member for roads, said: "This is a very important scheme to improve safety for everyone who uses this road.

"It's a nasty junction and this work will particularly improve pedestrian safety.

"I would ask people to bear with us while we carry out the work.

"We're hoping there won't be too much disruption but there will be lane closures on the Wolverhampton Road while we're making the changes so some inconvenience is unavoidable.

"Most of the works will be carried out under lane closures between the restricted hours of 9.30am to 3.30pm.

"We'll be stopping the work for three weeks over Christmas and New Year so we don't have roadworks interfering with the busy Christmas shopping period."

A 27-year-old woman was left seriously injured after she was trapped in her Audi after it crashed with a Mercedes at the junction in September 2014.

That came a year after another woman was badly hurt in a crash that took place at the junction.

And Oldbury councillor Susan Downing welcomed the project to make the junction safer.

She said: "It can be a hairy junction to manoeuvre over the main road. With the extra traffic going to Aldi as well it can cause problems at peak times.

"The council will only do traffic improvements if there has been a history of accidents, so if this reduces accidents I'm all for it."