Councillors have agreed to spend thousands of pounds making improvements to a busy Nailsea road where a blind pensioner was hit by a car.

Nailsea Town Council’s planning committee has agreed to fund 50 per cent of the project which will see a number of improvements made to Queens Road.

It is hoped work could start before April.

A campaign to make the road safer for pedestrians was launched by Ray Stevens in January 2014, with support from Guide Dogs For The Blind.

Ray told the Times, he felt he ‘risked his life’ every day trying to reach the shops and services and in December 2014 he suffered a fractured skull when he was hurt in an collision while trying to cross Queens Road.

The town council had been pushing for a controlled crossing, but as pedestrians cross in a variety of different places, the authority is now hoping to make a number of improvements along the stretch of road to make it safer for more people.

Town council clerk Ian Morrell said: “We have been trying to make improvements for a long time, but it has been complicated by the fact it’s a long road and there are multiple places where people cross.

“The original idea was to have a signal-controlled crossing but that was just not practical because no one location which would capture more than 15 per cent of people crossing the road.”

Improvements include building new road islands and extending old ones to ensure they are at least 2m wide so cater for people in wheelchairs.

Hatching will be added near Ash Hayes Road to stop drivers from using it as an ‘acceleration lane’ and tactile paving will installed at crossing approaches.

Mr Morrell added: “This isn’t the be all and end all and with the new housing developments, we need to keep an eye on how these changes will affect the road and review it further down the line. This is hopefully the first phase.

“The money is already in place and planning committee has said it is happy with the plan. I have just got to confirm what the final cost is.

“We have got a budget of £50,000. So we are paying 50 per cent of the costs, up to a maximum of £50,000. North Somerset Council has agreed to pay the rest.

“We hope work will start before the end of the financial year.”