HIGH-TECH traffic lights will be installed at a Basildon congestion hotspot.

Essex County Council will use the lights, which only turn red if traffic is approaching from the opposite direction, at the junction with the A127 and A132 at Nevendon, near Wickford.

Billericay MP John Baron welcomed the news by saying: "One of my pet hates is waiting unnecessarily at traffic lights.

"The county council should be applauded for this. I just wish all traffic lights were like it."

Council leader Malcolm Buckley said he would prefer to see traffic lights removed altogether to ease congestion at all times.

He said: "We have been lobbying the county council over this for a considerable period of time to get the lights removed.

"The changes are a step in the right direction and hope it will make enough impact at quieter times so County Hall sees sense and eventually removes them completely."

He told how Basildon Council objected when the normal lights went in about ten years ago, but the county council pushed them through.

Motorist John Rushton, 63, from Guernsey Gardens, Wickford, said he did not believe the changes would do much to beat rush-hour traffic.

He said: "This may make things slightly better at off-peak times.

"They did it at Rettendon Turnpike for a bit and it did ease things in quiet periods, but that is not when the problem is.

"It will do nothing to ease rush-hour congestion, which is only going to get worse because of the 700 or more homes they are planning for Wickford, putting more vehicles on our road."

Scott Wilson, Essex County Council highways spokesman, said: "They are not envisaged to be the entire solution to the Nevendon junction, but there will be further schemes and this will maximise the traffic flows at all times with intelligent traffic lights, which are able to sense what traffic is there and respond accordingly."