A CAMPAIGN to reinstate a roundabout in place of Newtown’s controversial traffic lights is gathering pace.
Posters displaying the slogan ‘get rid now’ have appeared in the windows of many shops and homes around Newtown over the past week.
The unwitting leader of the campaign, Phil Barnwell of Mid Wales Music, has called on the authorities to reinstate the roundabout as soon as possible.
He said: “My view is they will never succeed in getting the lights to work properly and they will have to be replaced with a mini island.
“The people from the Welsh Assembly traffic department have been telephoning me about it which is odd. They were going to rip out the computer system today and replace it with a new one but now they’ve said they can’t do it until Wednesday. If that works I will be extremely happy but I don’t believe it will.”
Mr Barnwell says he has nearly run out of printing ink for the leaflets as word spreads about the campaign.
He said: “Someone just came in here now and took four away, I’m running out of printing ink.
“I’ve had hundreds, and I don’t know who half the people are who are collecting them.”
Diane Venables of Station Cars taxi firm has backed the call for the roundabout to be reinstated saying the current situation is ridiculous.
She said: “I think it’s the only option, I think even if they synchronise the lights it’s not going to work. People cannot get over the bridge and they’ve never queued up there, it’s the same with Kerry road, it’s backed up like it is now. It doesn’t matter what approach our drivers use they just cannot get into town.
“It’s taking 20 minutes for our drivers to get from Morrisons to town, one day it took an hour.
“Trying to get school children to school in the mornings is the worst. We have done it for years and years and now we can’t get them to school on time.”
Diane said the situation has been so bad that the company was even forced to stop running for the first time ever.
She said: “I actually closed for two hours a week last Saturday because we could not complete the bookings, all our drivers were stuck everywhere and that’s the first time we have ever had to close.”