A NEWLY-FORMED Worcester pressure group says the Ketch roundabout saga "beggars belief" - and insists there are still unanswered questions.

The Worcester Transport Forum, which was set up by angry campaigners in response to the concerns surrounding the Southern Link Road, today said it cannot believe how the original new-look Ketch island ever got the go-ahead.

As your Worcester News revealed yesterday, after two weeks of emergency safety measures the county council spent the weekend delivering on its pledge to rectify the concerns over the £8 million roundabout.

As well as 'hatching out' the controversial merger lane exit for Carrington Bridge, painting it bright red to effectively take one section out of use, large white circulatory markings appeared around the island on Saturday night.

The 'straight on' arrow for drivers using the right hand lane from Norton island has also been removed, with all three changes the result of a safety audit prompted by public concern after 82,000 people had seen a video on social media.

Adrian Clark, from the Worcester Transport Forum, which has challenged the county council to a public meeting, today said: "We're impressed by the response from the council on this, I thought it would have taken them a month or longer.

"So that's good - but they've only done what they actually should have done in the first place, made the island safe.

"It beggars belief that it wasn't done in the first place and the fact it got passed like that, there's still real questions around it."

He also said the forum still wants a public Q&A to be held, not only around the Southern Link Road but the county's roads network in general.

"We're still trying to get it organised and we do want it to happen, Jon Fraser (the head of highways at County Hall) has said he'll get back to us," he added.

Mr Fraser says the traffic will be monitored carefully at the Ketch in the coming weeks to see how drivers find the changes, insisting the council took the public outcry "very seriously".

"We promised the public that we would take immediate action as soon as we had an agreed approach," he said.

* Your Worcester News has submitted a Freedom of Information request to the county council, asking that the full details of the safety audit and cost should be made public, and the subsequent bill to the public purse for the changes.

We have also contacted Conservative Councillor Simon Geraghty, the deputy leader and cabinet member responsible for infrastructure, and Councillor John Smith, who takes responsiibility for highways, to see if they want to add to Mr Fraser's comments.