A MOTORCYCLIST believes a serious accident is waiting to happen unless a set of faulty traffic lights under a railway bridge is repaired.

For the past six months the lights at Queen's Bridge, on the outskirts of Chippenham, have been operating on a default setting causing serious delays, and leading to drivers jumping the red light.

Alan Donald, 31, of Westcroft, Chippenham, is a teacher at the George Ward School in Melksham and uses the route along Saltersford Lane to get to work each day.

He is so concerned there will be a serious accident he contacted Wiltshire County Council to find out what is being done about the problem, but labelled the response as "pathetic".

He said: "I travel through the lights at around 8am and there are huge delays all the time.

"They are often red in both directions and many commuters just jump them because they are sick of waiting, which is just an accident waiting to happen.

"I use a motorbike and I don't want to go through the tunnel and find a car heading straight towards me. Frankly, this is an unacceptable situation that could and should have been resolved months ago."

Before the default setting was put in place, the lights instantly changed if nothing was coming in the opposite direction, so Mr Donald asked the county council why they are operating under the default system rather than the more effective previous method.

He was told the council was aware of a problem with the detector loops on the lights, but a number of issues needed to be resolved before they are repaired.

The response sent to Mr Donald earlier this week said the traffic controller signal, which controls the lights, had been hit by a vehicle and damaged, which has made it impossible to close the controller door.

The council told him opening the door could lead to people tampering with the equipment, so they are not prepared to open it, and that is why the default system is in operation.

The response also said the council is looking at a number of proposals that could be applied, including making the route one-way.

Mr Donald said: "It seems to me like a pathetic answer because what the council is saying is that they have to fix a door to fix the problem so they've just not bothered.

"Surely the most obvious way of fixing the problem is to fix the door.

"Perhaps there is more to this than meets the eye because if the problem is as simple as Wiltshire County Council claim, and if they really care about making life as smooth, safe and easy as possible for travellers, they would have fixed this months ago."

A spokesman for Wiltshire County Council confirmed the response Mr Donald received is how the situation stands at the moment, and added: "We don't want to be spending taxpayers' money on lights that might not be there very long anyway, given that the route could be made one-way in the near future."