Residents who are still angry about part of a key traffic junction being blocked off have not given up their battle, amid claims it is unsafe.

Kent County Council (KCC) closed the end of Cranborne Avenue where it joined the Wheatsheaf crossroads in Maidstone in March 2002 as a “temporary experiment”. But KCC later confirmed the closure would be permanent.

The council argues that taking Cranborne Avenue out of the traffic light sequence at the junction has sped up traffic flows, but some residents claim it has also made joining the Loose Road from the Shepway side far more dangerous.

Vehicles now have to join now at the junction with Plains Avenue, where there are no traffic light controls to see cars safely across potentially four lanes of busy traffic.

The residents have recruited the support of Maidstone and the Weald MP Helen Grant, who has organised a “round table meeting” where she, residents and KCC engineers will meet to discuss the problems, and potential solutions.

The campaign is being spearheaded by local resident Michelle James, but the MP has invited all those with concerns to the meeting which will be on Friday, March 1, at 11am, at her constituency office in Week Street.

KCC disputes that the new arrangements have worsened safety, saying the claim is not supported by accident records.

But Mrs James has done her own research, digging into social media posts and KentOnline stories, and says there has been 22 accidents in the locality since Cranborne Avenue was closed, with 13 specifically in Loose Road near Plains Avenue.

She also has her own experience to go on. For the past 14 years she has lived on Loose Road, just a short distance from the Plains Avenue junction.

Marion Crescent resident Andrew Hammersley has done his own analysis of the traffic data and modelled the results to predict future crashes.

He claims that if Cranborne Avenue remains closed, there will likely be 18.25 road traffic accidents on the Loose Road this year, which would reduce to 3.65 accidents if Cranborne Avenue were reopened.

He has submitted his data to the KCC cabinet member for highways, Cllr Neil Baker, and to members of the Maidstone Joint Transportation Board.

He said: “Ignoring this data is akin to neglecting residents' safety.”

Last week, resident Tony Mason wrote to KentOnline to say that in the year since he had moved to the area there had been two “terrible accidents” at the Plains Avenue/Loose Road junction.

He said: “Sooner or later someone is going to get seriously injured unless they put in traffic lights.”

One of those accidents was in August last year, one as recently as January 11, when a woman suffered serious injuries. Since then there has also been a crash on January 24, when a lorry collided with a car.

Mrs James has been told by Colin Shorter, KCC’s highways project manager, that the authority is considering extending the yellow box junction at Loose Road/Plains Avenue across the northbound lanes, heading into town, to improve safety.

But Mrs James said: “Extending the yellow box is not going to make any difference.

“Vehicles are regularly backed up from the Wheatsheaf to Armstrong Road, with no gap for motorists to get into.”

“A yellow box will cause more traffic to build up and vehicles are still going to go across as soon as there is space on either side of the yellow box.

“I believe there is no alternative but to reopen Cranborne Avenue, which was a great deal safer.”

Mrs James also pointed out that the Cranborne Avenue closure had been planned as part of a much grander scheme that involved knocking down the Wheatsheaf pub and building a much larger junction.

That has never happened and residents are growing increasingly suspicious that nothing is going to happen at the Wheatsheaf beyond the Cranborne Avenue closure, although Mrs James also admitted: “I for one would be happy to see the historic pub re-open.”

A KCC spokesperson said: “The next phase of the project will now be finalised to achieve the optimum design for the Wheatsheaf junction and to consolidate the benefits derived from the closure of Cranborne Avenue.”

“The final design and programme for Phase 2 will be confirmed in due course.”

KCC also said it only pays regard to collisions reported to the police involving death or personal injury and notified within 30 days of happening.

Mr Shorter told residents: “If a person did not identify an injury at the time of the collision or to the police within 30 days, then it won’t necessarily get passed onto us to record it.”

But he did say: “Injury classification starts off quite low, such as bruising, scrapes, cuts etc, so the system should, theoretically pick these all up.”

KCC also denied that the changes had resulted in any significant extension to queues of vehicles in Plains Avenue waiting to join Loose Road, but said it was considering lengthening the existing double yellow lines in Plains Avenue as “it has been observed there are existing conflicts with movements into and out of the junction”.