Two of Leicestershire's most dangerous roads pass through Harborough district

The two roads are the A6 and the A47, which run for a combined total of around 30 miles through the district.

The Department for Transport statistics show that the county’s most dangerous road is the A6, which bypasses Desborough and Market Harborough, bisects Kibworth and runs close to Great Glen, before continuing on to Kegworth in the north of the county.

There were 80 accidents resulting in injury along the whole Leicestershire length of the road last year, involving 158 vehicles and 113 injured people.

That’s two-and-a-half times more accidents than the Leicestershire stretch of the M1.

In one fatal accident in June, 2017, a 31-year-old woman from north west Leicestershire on the way home from a dog show in Lubenham, died in a two-car collision at the crossroads of the A6 and Langton Road, between Market Harborough and Kibworth.

Local county councillor Dr Sarah Hill said at the time: “Having used that junction myself, visibility isn’t brilliant, and people on the main road can easily forget that junction is there.”

The county’s second most dangerous road is the A47, which runs from Hinckley through Leicester to Peterborough.

The road cuts through the north of the Harborough district, past Thurnby and Bushby, Houghton on the Hill, Billesdon, Skeffington, Tugby and Keythorpe.

There were 73 accidents on this road where someone was injured.

By contrast, the M1 through Leicestershire had 31 accidents involving injury.

The common factor with both Harborough’s dangerous roads seems to be low-speed country lanes joining a wide, high-speed A-road, sometimes with limited visibility on both side roads and main roads.

Last year there were a total of 1,623 collisions on all roads in Leicestershire that caused injuries.

It averages out to more than four a day, or 31 a week.