By Samantha Castle, Reporter
When I first discovered the Welsh Assembly Government was proposing to start roadworks and restrict traffic flow on the A470 Conwy Valley trunk road near Llanrwst, my mind instantly thought of the delays.
Road users on this important link road, which joins the Conwy Valley communities and links North and South Wales, will be affected for the best part of 18 months, with speed restrictions, contraflows, temporary traffic signals, lengthy diversions and the usual dirt, mess and misery that roadworks bring.
But on the other hand, when I looked deeper into the history of this popular, unlit, narrow, winding road I discovered that it is a notorious accident blackspot and the Assembly's road improvement scheme will hopefully eradicate this problem by widening a particularly bad section.
Collision statistics provided by the police made shocking reading, with six fatalities in the last seven years, so I decided to investigate more and wrote this week's Issue on what is now referred to as the "Death Valley"!
Thankfully all is not lost, as North Wales Police, along with the Welsh Assembly and local authority, are, you'll be pleased to know, spending our money wisely for once. Long running initiatives like Arrive Alive, numerous zero tolerance campaigns and the hugely popular BikeSafe scheme have all helped educate road users on two wheels as well as four and reduced collision numbers.
We all hate roadworks and delays but it seems the local community appreciates the need is greater than the inconvenience on this occasion. But it's a long and winding road ahead and it seems road users, local and not, need to take more responsibility and ownership of their driving ability.
On a rather wet note, I hear the region, along with the rest of the country, is in for another wet weekend - in June! I only hope residents along the Afon Conwy and Afon Bach are not as badly affected by flooding, as is predicted. Perhaps the flood alleviation officers from the Environment Agency and Conwy County Council would like to visit the Conwy Valley village of Trefriw to see for themselves the impact of flood water there - that's if the road isn't underwater!
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