Step forward in dangerous A46 junction campaign after latest collision
A long-running campaign to improve safety at a busy Leicestershire junction has taken a step forward, following a recent multi-vehicle incident which shut the road for hours.
Residents have spent years raising concerns about the A46 junction linking Seagrave, Thrussington and Ratcliffe-on-the-Wreake, citing a history of collisions, near misses and difficult manoeuvres for drivers crossing the dual carriageway.
The junction sits close to the training ground of Leicester City FC, which opened in Seagrave in 2020 and has brought additional traffic to the area.
On Monday (June 1), emergency services were called to an incident involving three vehicles at the junction, with two people trapped in the wreckage.
It has prompted further calls for action to improve safety at the junction, with Seagrave Parish Councillor Paul Simpson saying it is something he deeply cares about.
His wife was involved in a serious collision at the junction in March 2022, prompting him to begin investigating the concerns that local residents had been raising for years.
He said: “Every time we were in the village somebody would say there’d been another near miss at the junction. Everybody’s got a junction story.”
Mr Simpson launched a public survey in 2022 asking residents whether they felt safe using the junction and whether further safety improvements were needed.
More than 1,000 people took part, with 95 per cent saying they did not feel safe crossing the junction and 96 per cent supporting further safety modifications. A follow-up survey in 2024 suggested concerns remained widespread.
The A46 Junction Improvement Group, bringing together parish councillors, borough councillors and residents from several surrounding villages, has spent years gathering evidence, submitting Freedom of Information requests and lobbying National Highways.
Seagrave Parish Council applied to the Road Safety Round of the Leicestershire Police and Crime Commissioner’s Community Action Fund, to install specialist CCTV monitoring technology at the junction.
This scheme aligns with the PCC’s road safety strategy, and is expected to cost around £6,000.
National Highways undertakes an annual review of personal injury collision data to identify locations where a further study is required.
These locations are then ranked in order of priority and allocated funding for work accordingly.
The body’s 2025 report for the junction showed that between 2019 and 2024 there had been five slight injury collisions, with no serious or fatal incidents within the same time period. The junction is therefore not listed high on its priority list for improvement works.
The newly-funded monitoring project, intended to provide additional evidence to the authority, is set to launch in Autumn 2026.
Mr Simpson said: “If we can show incidents that are happening that don’t fit the way dangerous junctions are currently measured, surely that helps demonstrate there’s a problem.”
Edward Argar, Conservative MP for Melton and Syston, has been joining the group in their efforts and has multiple meetings with National Highways.
On its stance that the junction does not meet the criteria for major works, Mr Argar said: “I disagree, and have previously set out my concerns and those of the community that it would only be a matter of time before there was another serious collision here, and sadly, that has proved to be the case.”