A six-year road safety campaign in Hagley has paid off.

Residents are celebrating after news that highways bosses have agreed to alter a ‘race track’ junction in the village.

Local people have been complaining since the creation of two lanes on Kidderminster Road just before and after the traffic lights at its junction with Worcester Road.

Hundreds took to the streets on a couple of occasions in demonstrations to highlight their concerns that the road was not as safe as before and was causing growing air pollution.

Bromsgrove District Councillor Steve Colella said drivers would often ‘put their foot down’ to try to race past traffic before the lights, and after the lights drivers would rush to ‘cut in’ before the two lanes merged back into one.

He said both the manoeuvres and the speeds were a safety issue.

Meanwhile, local people argued that congestion was building up from cars going in the opposite direction because the it only took a few cars at the lights to block the slip road onto Worcester Road and into the centre of the village.

Queueing stop-start traffic backed up to the next junction was creating a real pollution problem.

But after years of campaigning Worcestershire County Council have accepted the junction does not work properly and are going to revert to its original, said Cllr Colella.

He is hopeful the work – which should take about three weeks - will be done before April next year.

“I’d like to thank all the residents who have helped and supported by campaigning and lobbying.”