HIGHWAYS bosses today promised to investigate urgent calls for extra crash barriers alongside the re-constructed A64 at Copmanthorpe.

A motorist warned that without the barriers, drivers and pedestrians on a new link road alongside the dual carriageway could be at risk from vehicles shooting down an embankment and on to their road.

Peter Spence, of Bowyers Close, Copmanthorpe, wrote to the Highways Agency to say he feared it would only be a matter of time before the first fatal accident happened.

The link road and an associated underpass under the A64, which are due for completion in the next few weeks, are intended to give Copmanthorpe motorists safe access to York and the eastbound carriageway by replacing a notorious gap in the central reservation and associated traffic lights.

But Mr Spence said he believed that without barriers, the new road was more dangerous than the lights.

He said two stretches of barriers had already been erected alongside the westbound carriageway - close to the village and alongside the underpass. But the stretch of road between the two locations had no barriers in place.

"We understand that the gradient you have created on the embankment by doing the works may not quite be enough to justify barriers along that stretch," he said.

"However, now that the traffic lights have been removed, that stretch of the A64 is very fast. Anyone braking to avoid an accident in the area will have no choice but to pull to the left and drive down the embankment hill.

"As there is nothing to stop the vehicle, it is absolutely certain that a vehicle going at that speed will roll.

"This will not only seriously injure or kill the occupants, but will also seriously injure or kill any local residents on your new road at the bottom of the hill."

He said he was raising the matter because he himself had only recently had to brake severely on the A64 and narrowly missed shooting down the embankment. "This has also happened to at least two other local residents that I am aware of in the last two weeks."

An agency spokeswoman said that this was the sort of issue which would normally be picked up during an independent safety audit conducted at the end of all such road-building projects.

However, as Mr Spence had raised his concerns with the agency, it would now look into the barrier issue. A risk assessment would look at the likelihood of such an accident happening, and the likely consequences if it did happen, she said.

Updated: 11:35 Wednesday, September 04, 2002