NHS Borders has welcomed last week’s decision by Scottish Borders Council to demand an immediate road safety review of the notorious BGH junction.
Councillors unanimously approved the motion of Melrose and Leaderdale councillor David Parker regarding what he described as “the appalling accident record” involving vehicles emerging on to the busy A6091 trunk road.
SBC leader Mr Parker, as reported last week, had originally called for Transport Scotland, which is responsible for the trunk road network, to investigate the creation of a roundabout or a slip road to alleviate the hazard, which has seen 18 accidents resulting in injury in the past decade.
He also highlighted that, despite £10,000-worth of realignment work being carried out in December and the introduction of a “no right turn” for traffic exiting the hospital, a further two injury accidents had been recorded.
At Thursday’s full council meeting councillors went further and agreed to urge Transport Scotland to consider the installation of traffic lights as another possible solution.
A letter will now go to the national agency calling for it to “instigate an immediate road safety review of the BGH junction with a view to implementing a more significant engineering solution to resolve the well recognised accident problems at this location”.
A spokesperson for the health authority told us: “NHS Borders has expressed concern about the safety of this junction on a number of occasions and we welcome the council’s demand that this should be revisited.”