THE scheme to improve road safety on Tavistock's Drake's Statue roundabout was last week labelled a 'total disaster' during a meeting in the town.

Prior to Tavistock Town Council's meeting last Tuesday, members were visited by the chief assistant engineer of Devon County Council's southern area highways management department, John Halliday, who answered the concerns councillors had on the work undertaken earlier this year.

The roundabout has been a hot topic since the work was carried out, sparking many letters to the Times.

Cllr John Sellis said: 'In my experience as a heavy goods vehicle driver of many years, the roundabout is a total disaster! The only answer is to put it back the way it was.'

A member of the public was also in attendance at the meeting and expressed his concern as a cyclist using the new roundabout.

He said: 'I use the Callington Road filter on a regular basis and I don't like it.

'In future I think there should be less reliance on computer models and more reliance on common sense.'

A report to Devon County Council by area engineer Brian George stated that the 2007/08 review of casualty sites within West Devon had identified the roundabout as a site for action with five injury collisions reported in a three year period from 2004 to 2006.

But the meeting heard that since the roundabout was completed in April, the railings around the statue had been hit three times in the space of six weeks by large vehicles, with two of the corners being ripped away.

Mr Halliday told councillors that the point of the road safety improvements were to reduce the number of injury collisions, which he said had been done.

He said: 'We understand that there is currently a concern with the number of large vehicles using the roundabout who occupy the whole of the entrances and cannot stay in their own lanes. Cllr Trew has said that this was unacceptable because large vehicles could injure cyclists.

'We will make sure the concerns of Cllr Trew and the town council are addressed.'

Members were also concerned that the county council has said it will not pay for the roundabout to be put back the way it was — and will only put forward £1,000 to fix the railings which have been damaged, £600 short of the £1,600 total cost.

The town council has drawn up options on what could be done in order to prevent further collisions taking place on the roundabout.

To curve each corner of the railings and to install traffic deflection bollards would cost £5,108, and to install chamfered corners with traffic deflection bollards would cost £4,828.

Tavistock mayor Robin Pike suggested the council should wait until it had received all the necessary information from Devon County Council and the town council's work superintendent, Wayne Southall, before a final decision was be made on what could be done to improve the landmark roundabout.