THE man in charge of Worcestershire's highways for 15 years has today delivered a damaging verdict on the Southern Link Road - labelling Whittington island "potentially dangerous" and calling the Ketch roundabout "sub-standard".

Your Worcester News has tracked down one of the county's most respected former infrastructure engineers to get an independent view on the A4440.

Vivian Jones, now 85, was in charge of highways and bridges from 1976 to 1991 across both Worcestershire and Herefordshire, is well regarded across the entire UK for his work and was handed an OBE by the Queen before he retired.

The expert, of Battenhall Rise, Worcester, who held the top post of county engineer and planner, said:

- The council has suffered too many cuts and as a result he suspects it has lost too much in-house expertise

- The intense public criticism over the roundabouts have been "fairly lodged" because they suffer from design flaws

- Whittington island is still too risky despite the changes to the slip road Mr Jones is of the view that neither traffic island is good enough, saying his view of them is "not good".

He said: "It's not good I'm afraid - one of the big differences we had was a big, strong team of very well qualified people who knew all about highways matters.

"Without being uncharitable, I don't think that's the case now - the way things are now, councils tend to act like the Government and outsource things.

"As a result work is placed with outside consultants, and the downside to that is this ridiculous situation where you get one consultant to design something and another to advise the client - I don't quite know how it's any better or more efficient.

"In my view, the criticism has been very fairly lodged by the public over Whittington island - we've got a slip-road which is so short it's potentially dangerous.

"And on the Ketch island, we've got a sub-standard design. It's not good."

The stark criticism has heaped more pressure on Worcestershire County Council, which has been fending off calls to halt any more work on the £41 million link road revamp until the whole project has been reviewed.

Mr Jones, who helped oversee the Carrington Bridge project, worked in Devon, Somerset, Cardiff, Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire and Essex overseeing roads projects before becoming county surveyor and bridgemaster for both counties in 1976.

A former president of the nation's County Surveyors' Society, he was handed an OBE in the 1991 Queen's Birthday Honours for his expertise spanning 40 years into roads and bridges.

The Facebook video which led to two exits of the new-look Ketch island being partly sectioned off last Friday has been viewed 81,000 times and 1,262 people have signed a petition calling for the layout to be altered.

This afternoon, the county council rejected the criticism by insisting it was only focused on the current safety audit into the new-look £8 million Ketch layout.

It has also defended the way it works by insisting it uses people with "expert knowledge".

A spokesman said: "Worcestershire County Council has used specialist contractors for 19 years to deliver professional design work for its major highway projects, as well as other specialist contractors for all aspects of construction services.

"Using industry specialists with expert knowledge has enabled Worcestershire County Council to become an established commissioning council that successfully delivers large highways projects."

It did not go into any further details over the comments by Mr Jones.

PRESSURE GROUP LAUNCHES TO KEEP TABS ON COUNCIL

TWO of Worcester's leading campaigners over roads have teamed up to launch a pressure group - saying they will not ease up.

St John's-based Lisa Ventura, who led the campaign over Whittington island's slip road after having a bump there, has launched the 'Worcester Transport Forum' with Adrian Clark, 34, who created a Facebook site to embarrass bad drivers.

Both of them have been critical of the Southern Link Road, and say they will use the pressure group to highlight what they view as problems with the roads, and lobby County Hall.

They are also trying to organise a public meeting soon to kick it off and have a presence on Facebook already.

Mrs Ventura said: "There's no political agenda with this, we're just members of the public who want to do our bit.

"We want people to voice their opinions, it'll be around the big agenda items like the Ketch and Whittington roundabouts, obviously - we want people to voice their thoughts on anything to do with traffic."

Mr Clark, a customer services advisor at Shrub Hill railway station, who launched 'Worcester Bad Drivers' in May, added: "The fact the Ketch got passed like that beggars belief - if you're not from around this area you'd assume those two lanes (which merge at the Carrington Bridge exit) carry on down the bridge, which I think is where the problem is."

To see the forum's Facebook page visit HERE.

To see how the council decided to bring forward its safety audit on the Ketch island, go HERE and to see what was said about the Whittington island changes last week, visit THIS link.