HIGHWAYS bosses are facing renewed calls to lower the speed limit on a busy dual carriageway after they rejected a plea earlier this year.

Durham county councillors voted in June to keep the 70mph limit on the A167 at Chester Moor, near Chester-le-Street, which is divided by the road.

Pensioner Jeanette Tubmen is launching a campaign for a 50mph limit between Chester Moor and Plawsworth, where a £1.5m roundabout was built to replace the dangerous Red Lion junction.

Mrs Tubmen, a retired health visitor, said vehicles sped despite the roundabout, that pedestrians risked their lives trying to cross the road and that joining the A167 from Plawsworth was hazardous.

She is starting a petition that will this week go into the post office at Nettlesworth.

She hopes to win support from the residents of Plawsworth, Nettlesworth and Kimblesworth.

Mrs Tubmen said: "We were told the roundabout would be the answer to everybody's prayers, but it isn't.

"Pedestrians cannot cross the road because it is 70mph.

"Pensioners from Nettlesworth and Kimblesworth who collect their pensions at Chester-le-Street get the bus home all the way to Durham and then get another one from Durham so that they are on the right side of the road and do not have to cross.

"We asked for traffic signals but were turned down.

"The ideal would be a footbridge, but we would never get that."

She said some traffic took the roundabout too fast, that the road was a racetrack for young drivers at weekends and that drivers emerging from Plawsworth had a difficult task getting into the right lane if they were trying to drive towards Chester-le-Street.

The county council's highways committee said there were no grounds to lower the limit at Chester Moor.

Residents said half the village was cut off from amenities by the A167, which has no footbridge, underpass or pedestrian crossing.

A county council spokesman said: "In view of Mrs Tubmen's concerns, our officers will visit the site to assess the situation."

He said one of her concerns, the difficulty joining the A167 because of the lack of gaps in the traffic, would not be helped by a lower limit.