Concern over several near misses at the Kent Elms Junction has prompted councillors to call for a change to the road design.

The junction, which was recently upgraded to improve traffic flow, has three lanes merging into two but the merging lane has been criticised for being too short resulting in near misses.

A motion tabled by Conservative Councillor David McGlone and Independent Councillor Stephen Aylen calls for another redesign that would dedicate the near side lane into a left turn only, leaving the other two lanes to go straight ahead.

Mr Aylen called the current layout “not user friendly” and said the motion is a low-cost solution.

“We just want to see arrows that say left hand turn in that near side lane and for it to be sign posted. It is what everybody has been asking for and when you look at this it is common sense,” said Mr Aylen.

“This is a simple way to unconfuse the junction.

"The scheme of going from three into two is an acceptable way to speed up traffic flow but right now it slows down because everyone brakes when they approach the junction because they don’t know where they are going.

“We just want that lane changed to left hand turn only and if it doesn’t work we can always change it back.”

But Councillor Ron Woodley, who over sees transport, said there is limited evidence the junction is a safety concern.

He said: “This is a motion, it will go to council and then to cabinet and we will look at it. I don’t want to rule anything out as some aspects of this may be right but the important thing is we do have a flow of traffic going through there.

“I do understand the concerns but before doing anything I am waiting on a safety audit, currently they are saying that there isn’t a safety problem.

“We had a couple of accidents there initially and they were caused by bad driving, since then there has been no incidents as people are getting used to it.”