CONTROVERSIAL £25million plans to widen one of Southend’s worst bottlenecks should be reconsidered to finally tackle traffic chaos, a councillor has claimed.

Southend Council has revealed it is carrying out a “safety audit” of proposals to ease congestion on the Cuckoo Corner and Priory Crescent junction with Victoria Avenue, Manners Way and the A127.

These include extending a stretch of merging traffic as it leaves the roundabout onto Priory Crescent and removing a pedestrian crossing near to the junction.

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If implemented the proposals would bring short-term benefits but Tony Cox, leader of the Reform Group, says more drastic action is needed to cope with increasing demand.

He fears the controversial scheme, which triggered months of treetop protests from campaigners in Priory Park, is the only way to increase capacity.

Mr Cox said: “They will potentially help but my concern is they will provide some initial improvements but will slowly be eradicated just like all the gains have disappeared from when the improvements at the junction were initially done.

“I think further improvements would need to happen down the line considering more vehicles will use that junction when they close the Queensway Underpass. Ultimately I think they are going to need to widen the junction to allow for greater capacity.”

Labour leader of the council Daniel Cowan, who when in opposition put forward a motion for improvements at the junction, says some actions have already been implemented while other solutions are investigated.

He said: “The first stage of our investigation has been to reset all the lights as it was discovered they were not working as programmed. Pedestrians were pressing the button but crossing before the lights changed. This should have resulted in the pedestrian call being cancelled as the sensors should have detected there was no pedestrian waiting. This led to cars being held for “phantom” pedestrians and slowing down traffic flow.

“We have explored a box junction at the bottom of Manners Way, but the legislation prevents this as all entrances/exits from a roundabout must be traffic signalled so unless we also install traffic signals on Manners Way, this isn’t possible.

“I have set up a Working Party to discuss and comment on the current options being reviewed .”