NEW motorway signs will help cut traffic on Lancashire's most dangerous road, where 83 people have been killed or injured in two years.

New Highways Agency boss Kevin Lasbury has vowed to make speedy changes, and thanked the Lancashire Evening Telegraph for highlighting the problem.

The notorious Grane Road between Haslingden and Blackburn is used as a rat run by motorway traffic and residents claim traffic has increased hugely since the M65 extension opened.

Grane Residents' Association claimed victory after local councils agreed to install traffic calming measures and speed restrictions on the road by April 2000.

Now Mr Lasbury, boss of the North West Highways Agency area, has also pledged to try and reduce traffic on the road after the Lancashire Evening Telegraph asked him about it when he started work on Monday.

After consultations with Lancashire County Council and Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council, he has agreed for signs saying "Blackburn South" on the A56 dual carriageway and "Haslingden" on the M65 to be removed as soon as possible.

New signs will be erected at Haslingden directing lorries to continue on the dual carriageway instead of turning off on to the Grane Road.

Margaret Murray, secretary of Grane Residents' Association, said: "It's really good news. This is one of the things we have been campaigning for for quite a long time.

"All the traffic is coming along the Grane Road but the motorway is the place for big, heavy lorries."

Chairman Tim Barlow said traffic on the road had increased from around 5,000 vehicles per day five years ago to 8,500 per day this year, the equivalent of one every five seconds.

He said: "The road isn't designed to carry that volume of traffic. The motorways should never have been signposted like that in the first place.

"We are still waiting for work to start on the traffic calming but it's certainly a step in the right direction."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.