Fears that Shropshire A49 safety work will not happen

After another serious accident on the A49 in the south of the county, councillors said they despair at ever improving safety on the road.

West Mercia Police is calling for witnesses to a rush-hour crash that left a motorcyclist with multiple serious injuries after his bike collided with a tractor near Onibury on the A49.

A further crash on the same road took place shortly after 3pm yesterday at the A489 junction at Wistanstow. A 75-year-old woman was treated for chest injuries.

In January, the road was rated as the county's most dangerous for death or serious injury in a report by JT Hughes, and since June, three people have lost their lives.

But David Evans, Shropshire councillor for Craven Arms, has added his voice to comments by town council chairman David Mills, in despairing over whether anything can or will be done to improvechange road safety.

Councillor Evans said: "Ideally it would but it will never happen, I think, because there would have to be the purchase of land and so on. Traffic has increased a lot over the last 10 years and there are more lorries on there now as well.

"But Highways England are always telling us they haven't got any money, nobody seems to want to do anything.

"They seem to be happy to just keep resurfacing and patching up, there are no major works to change the road in the pipeline at all."

On Monday evening a motorcyclist in his 20s was taken to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham in a critical condition after his Yamaha R6 bike collided with a John Deere tractor near Park Farm, between Craven Arms and Ludlow, at about 6.30pm.

Murray MacGregor, speaking for West Midlands Ambulance Service, said three land ambulances, a rapid response vehicle and the aircrew from the Midlands Air Ambulance from Cosford were called to the scene. An off duty paramedic also responded.

He said the rider had suffered "significant head injuries" as well as multiple fractures.

"He was immobilised and had splints applied before he was taken on blue lights to the major trauma centre at Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham," he said.

"The doctor travelled on the ambulance."

He said the motorcyclist was understood to still be in a serious condition.

The road south of Craven Arms was closed to traffic most of Monday night.

The accident follows multiple serious collisions in recent months including three between Shrewsbury and Ludlow in 36 hours at the start of August, after which Councillor Mills of Craven Arms Town Council said he was at a loss to know how to stop such accidents, but long-term the road should have at least some dual carriageway.

Anyone with information on Monday's crash is asked to call West Mercia Police on 101 and quote incident 0647s of October 17.