Fresh safety fears raised after congestion mayhem at busy junction on A1 in Northumberland
Shocking footage shared by a campaign group calling for improvements on the A1 in Northumberland shows a car trapped in the middle of the road as traffic passes by on either side.
The video – and still image shown here – was captured by a local farmer and shows the Beal turn off for Holy Island.
The junction is one of the busiest in the north of the county due to a high volume of visitors heading for Lindisfarne.
A spokesman for the Northumberland A1 Safety Alliance (NASA) said: “We see this what we see all too often at Beal and it’s going to end very badly very soon if we don’t all drive with a little more patience.
“Tourists don’t know the road like we do. We have to help them for us all to stay safe.”
The NASA was established by co-founders Kezz Petronelli-Stone and Richard Shell. The pair said they had “witnessed daily how the dangerous, single-lane stretches of the northern A1 put lives and local commerce at risk”.
Calls to dual the A1 in Northumberland have been made for decades. However, the issue has returned to the forefront in recent months following a series of fatal accidents this year.
The Government scrapped a scheme that would have seen 13 miles of the road dualled between Morpeth and Ellingham in 2024. Officials have said they are working on safety improvements as part of the Road Investment Strategy (RIS) – but any schemes have yet to come forward.
Cllr Guy Renner-Thompson, who represents the nearby Bamburgh ward, has claimed there was an urgent need for junctions to be improved.
He said: “This is yet another example of a junction on the A1 that needs consideration. The design work for those junctions between Morpeth and Ellingham was done under the last Government as part of the dualling scheme, so they just need to be brought out of the cupboard.
“The junction to the island is particularly busy because Holy Island gets thousands upon thousands of visitors every year. Many of these people are unfamiliar with the road, visitors don’t know it.
“Out of all the junctions, that one suffers from the worst congestion. People get frustrated and they pull out in front of something they shouldn’t.
“When Lindisfarne Festival is on, the tailbacks can go from the A1 all the way back to the causeway. I’ve been sat on the A1 trying to get to Berwick and the congestion is because of this junction.
“Even on normal days, it is extremely congested now. It’s surprising there hasn’t been more incidents.”