VILLAGERS took it upon themselves to carry out work at a blackspot junction after growing tired of waiting for something to be done.

Residents near Lane End junction, Stoke St Gregory, funded the £1,500 scheme themselves after losing patience with Somerset County Council’s highways department in 1989.

Parish council chairman, Reg Vowles, pictured, said: The viability at this junction was practically nil.

“There were prangs all the time.

“But already there is a vast improvement.

“I feel proud we could be the first village to go ahead with this kind of scheme on our own. Let’s hope one or two other villages will also take the bull by the horns themselves.”

The project involved demolishing a wall, bank and hedge, and slicing a 30metre long strip of land about a metre wide from a front garden owned by the Morrice family - who generously agreed and cooperated with the scheme.

The money came from parish council funding and was available because of ‘previous good housing keeping’, according to Mr Vowles.