There has been another crash at an accident spot christened "suicide junction" by the people who live there.

People who live near the junction of Halfway Street and Willersley Avenue in Sidcup, have been campaigning for traffic lights to be installed at the junction for more than six years.

They were brought out of their homes yet again on May 4 just after 9pm when a vehicle turning out of Willersley Avenue collided with another car travelling along Halfway Street from the Sidcup station direction. At least one person was taken to hospital.

Now Jim Holder, chairman of Lamorbey Residents, who is leading the campaign, has written to Bexley Council leader Councillor Chris Ball urging the Labour council to act on the situation.

The previous Tory council had always resisted the request to install traffic lights at the junction, suggesting they might do nothing to improve the accident rate, which in the three years to December 2002 was 2.6 accidents a year.

In 1998, bowing to local pressure, the council improved the road signs and road markings in Halfway Street between Willersley Avenue and the borough's boundary.

At the time, the accident rate at the junction was 2.1 a year and over a three-year period it says the changes reduced accidents to one a year.

As pressure from local people continued, in March 2001 the council widened Halfway Street either side of the Willersley Avenue junction and put in central refuges to help people to cross the road more safely. It also installed new signs, road markings and anti-skid road surfaces. A third refuge was built in Willersley Avenue.

In the 18 months since that work was done, the accident rate per year has gone up to 2.9 a year but a council spokesman stressed this figure was likely to come down over the full three-year monitoring period.

He said if the three-year review showed there had been no improvement or the accident rate had risen, the council would look again at the situation, including the idea of traffic lights.

But he stressed lights would not necessarily improve the safety of the junction and would lead to long traffic queues at peak times.