A SERIES of safety measures on East Lancashire's death road has brought about a massive reduction in the carnage, it has been revealed.

But residents insist that yet more measures are needed to prevent heavy wagons from across Europe and the UK ruining their quality of life.

The A 6177 Grane Road connects the A56 at Haslingden to the M65 at junction five, south of Blackburn.

It was the subject of a Lancashire Evening Telegraph campaign when serious accidents involving motorists peaked at 28 a year in 1998.

However, £30,000 worth of investment in traffic safety measures has cut the number of accidents by 50 per cent. In the three years before the scheme in 2000 there were 12 fatal accidents, since then there have been none, said Peter Andrews group manager of safety engineering at Lancashire County Council.

Police say they will supplement the traffic safety measures by the use of two mobile speed cameras on the Grane Road in the coming months.

But campaigner Tony Hodbod, of the Grane Residents Association, told officers from Lancashire County Council, Rossendale Borough Council and police that a restriction on the weight of vehicles should be imposed.

Mr Hodbod said that wagons travelling from the "Balkans to Pitlochrie" used the road as a short cut, saving time and fuel.

"The Grane Road has become a national trunk road. It's not suitable for it. We are the people who live there and are affected by it.

"No maximum size vehicle has a right to be in that area at all.."

Mr Hodbod also pressed for a further speed restriction to 30mph.

Mr Andrews said that it was a case of prioritising where money should be spent throughout the whole of the county. He said that the number of accidents on the Grane Road stretch now did not justify further measures.

"It's a question, regrettably, of prioritisation.

"The justification for any local safety scheme is to do with reported accidents in the last few years.

"Unfortunately, it's a fact of life that we are dealing with the here and now rather than what might happen."

On the issue of the weight restriction, Insp Stuart Isherwood of Accringtonroad policing unit said it would be difficult to monitor because of limited resources.

"I cannot use thinly-spread resources to stand at the end of Grane Road booking HGVs."

Colin Peacock a traffic manager for Pennine Division police said that authorisation had been given for two mobile speed camera units to be situated on the Grane Road as soon as possible.