A HIGHWAYS expert warned that someone could die on a “danger junction” if a plan was approved – but his advice was ignored by councillors.

Chief officer Pieter Barnard told Copeland’s planning panel that holiday let plans for the grounds of Moresby Hall would put lives at risk.

But councillors approved the development which will see more traffic using the main entrance to the Grade I-listed building.

Mr Barnard, who works for the county Highways Department, advised the panel that none of the road safety measures suggested would make a difference.

He also told them he initially thought he may have “overstepped” only for a site visit to confirm that visibility on the junction was every bit as bad as he feared.

Mr Barnard said: “The Highways authority has got a lot of flack for saying ‘It’s going to be okay’ if something is just under. This is 100 metres under (the recommended visibility distance). It is severe.

“And this is not just driving at 30 and you hit someone. This is coming out and t-boning at 40. Anything that I put in place there that fails – I’m in the firing line. Even one accident would potentially be a fatality. The rules are simple. I cannot do it. I’m not going to an inquest or to jail.”

The plans include the conversion of a two-storey barn into ten holiday lets as well as the creation of a 14-space car park, a small gym and breakfast room.

Officers at Copeland council and the county council’s Highways department had recommended refusal.

However, councillors were not persuaded of the risks after hearing that there had been no reported accidents on this stretch of road even when it was used as a “rat run” before the building of the Distington bypass.

Councillors suggested to Mr Barnard that a mirror to improve visibility, warning signs and slashing the speed limit could all help make the junction safer.

Linda Jones-Bulman said: “It isn’t road that’s dangerous: it’s the drivers that are on it. The road is no longer being used as a rat run and there wasn’t any RTAs here back then. The hall is very well-known by drivers. Can we not push it (the speed limit) being altered to a 30 or even a 25, have ‘Slow down, Access’ signs or a mirror opposite rather than just saying ‘No, it can’t be done?’”

Coun Brian O’Kane said he was finding if “difficult” because councillors were being asked to decide not on the creation of a new entrance but on a planning application which could possibly affect a junction that was already there.

Michael McVeigh, chairman of the meeting, was the only member of the panel to vote with officers’ recommendations to refuse the application.

“It’s a brave man who would fly in the face of the of the advice of highways, and I am not that brave,” he said.